iStylista Personal Shopper Guide Giveaway

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

If you read my review of the iStylista Personal Shopper Guide you may be wanting to try this service out for yourself. If you are like me you never know what clothes look good on you and what colours look nice. This personal shopper guide takes details about you, your body shape, face shape and personality and gives you guidance into what styles choose you. You also get a changing room that provides hints and tips on what clothes you can wear and where you can buy them. I was skeptical at first but its actually a good service. The good news is that I have some codes for ten lucky readers to get their own personal shopper guide worth £30. To enter all you need to do is to make a comment telling me what special event you would like to be styled for.

For an extra entry you can subscribe to my RSS feed and let me know you have done so.

The Rules

UK only
Closing date for entries Monday 16th April 2012 at midnight
Include a valid email address or twitter id (it will not been shown)
One entry per household
The winners will be contacted by email and their details used for delivery only and not kept for any other purpose
Ten winners will be chosen at random from all valid entries.
If I do not get a response from a winner within two weeks a new winner will be drawn.

iStylista Online Personal Shopper Review

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

Recently I was given the opportunity to review iStylista’s online Style Goddess guides which is a personal shopper report. If you are anything like me you are not sure what clothes suit you and never get a chance to try things on properly in shops. Whenever I go shopping for myself my son has this habit of standing there saying “I’m bored” so I always feel I am in a rush. It would be really useful to have a personal shopper to help guide me though what clothes look good on my body shape, but this is usually a luxury which is reserved for celebrities.

iStylista.com aims to change this. It was launced in May 2009 as the online personal stylist. It was founded by Chantelle Znideric who is professional stylist to the rich and famous. She used the experience she had gained over the years to create an opportunity for every woman to shop for designer clothes with confidence.

The first step is to get your online style guide which will recommend what best suits you. It is rather nicely named the Style Goddess Style Guide so I had great hopes that it would turn me into one. When entering the style guide it asks you questions about your body shape, face shape, size and colouring. On the whole these are fairly easy to answer but I had a bit of difficulty with the colouring as none of the shades looked quite right. I just picked the best match in the end and hoped. It also gives you a number of lifestyle choices to choose from which include Yummy Mummy (I wish), Party Girl and Professional. You are limited to one choice which makes it harder, I am sometimes one of these and sometimes another. Finally there is a section on additional style advice, so if you have a body area that particularly worries you you can ask for advice on covering it up. Once you have gone though all the questions you get your own personalised style guide.

This is a .pdf file which is substantial, mine was 30 pages long. It is comprehensive and goes into great detail. It looks at what clothes suit your body shape with example pictures of styles you should choose. If you picked problem areas it gives you information on what will minimise these and make you look good which is very useful. It looks at the different colours that you should be wearing that will suit your colouring. I was pleased that my colour palette had a lot of blues and greens in, which are colours that I normally wear as I like them. It also had various shades of pinks which is not a colour I would normally choose. I will definitely be experimenting and trying a few of these colours. You then get ideas on what basics you should be choosing to build up your capsule wardrobe. This gives you great ideas on mixing and matching clothes to get a number of different looks from just a few key pieces. Usefully it even looked at your faceshape with ideas for glasses, hairstyles and jewellery so you can add those finishing touches.

I found the report incredibly useful and it has definitely given me ideas of the sort of styles I should be wearing. It doesn’t stop there however, you also get your own online changing room on the site. This gives you great ideas of what clothes you can buy from their online partners and I was very pleased with the selections it chose for me.

The prices were reasonable as well so I would definitely be tempted to buy. All in all I enjoyed the experience and it is really nice to know what sort of clothes suit me.

If you would like to try it out for yourself I have a discount code for 40% off a Personalised Style Goddess style guide. To try it out just do the following

Go to http://www.istylista.com/style-guides/ and click ‘Download’ under the Style Goddess column.
Complete your style questionnaire and enter code R4E6-3YD4-VR when prompted towards the end of the questionnaire.

Sure Maximum Protection Deodorant Review

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

Given the unseasonable hot weather we have been experiencing the last few days it seemed like the ideal opportunity to try out the Sure Maximum Protection Deodorant that I had been sent for review. This is a new deodorant from Sure which is meant to offer twice the protection against sweat compared to the best selling antiperspirant. It also claims to offer 48 hour protection. There are three different varieties of Sure Maximum Protection Deodorant. Confidence, which is the one in the pink box, to keep you drier for longer. Sensitive, the one in the purple box, which will keep you dry but is also kind to sensitive skin and one in the light blue box is Fresh Clean Scent to provide an everyday clean feeling for longer.

The smell of all three varieties is nice. They have a nice crisp clean scent which is not overpowering and will not mask the scent of any perfume that you might also use.

Inside the box you find the deodorant. It is a nicely shaped plastic container which is the ideal shape for holding in your hand. The lid is easy to remove and to get the deodorant out you need to turn the dial at the bottom of the container. When you take the lid off however it is a bit different from the normal roll-on or stick deodorant.

The top has a mesh like design and turning the wheel at the bottom pushes a white cream though the mesh. I thought this was a bit strange but it actually works very well. The deodorant is easy to apply but be careful not to push a lot of it though the mesh or you find you are applying too much. You only need a little bit. It absorbs quickly without being too sticky underarm.

Sure Maximum Protection Deodorant is made with a new Trisolid formula, which sounded odd to me but it is called this because it has three components. These are:

Extra strength dryness protection – it works while you sleep forming an unbeatable level of wetness protection for the day ahead
It has a specially patented fragrance technology that uses odour protecting microcapsules. These dissolve when you sweat to keep you smelling fresh throughout the day.
It protects the skin from irritation with special skin conditioning ingredients.

The question you are asking now is does it work? I found that it worked very well, I applied it in the morning, spent the day at work and then went home and made a fool of myself trying to do zumba. After all that I still felt reasonably dry and it definitely worked better than my normal deodorant.

RRP: £5.09 for 45 ml available from all leading retailers.

Other reviews you may be interested in:

Halo Eye Make-up Remover Pads

Lypsyl Lip Balms

Confessions of Imperfect Parenting

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

When I saw that Mummy From The Heart was running a blog carnival entitled Confessions of Imperfect Parenting I just had to join in. I know that I am not a perfect parent. I try really hard but motherhood is one of those jobs that you are just not prepared for in advance. You get handed a little tiny baby and suddenly along with the overwhelming feeling of love you realise you are responsible and you have no clue what to do. In the past you would have had your extended family around you giving you help, but in these modern times a lot of families are spread out and new mums may feel very much alone. There is a lot to learn and we all make mistakes along the way. Hopefully at the end of the day our children do not suffer for it and will grow into fabulous adults.

My son is now eleven but I am going to take you back in time a few years to when he was five. This is an age where they are starting to gain a bit if independence and confidence so they do not feel they have to be next to you at every moment. However they are really trusting and unaware of the dangers that may lurk around them. It was late November and we had travelled into town to do some shopping. At that time of year town is magical for a child and filled with distractions. All the Christmas decorations are up in the shops along with the displays of Christmas gifts. Fenwicks, a department store, have their Christmas windows up. These are amazing, they have a different theme every year and are a long set of windows that tell a story with moving parts and music. Needless to say there are big queues to see them and as well as that town is very crowded with everyone doing their Christmas shopping.

I popped into a shop to buy something, I can’t remember what now but it was something I needed. My son was holding my hand and asking twenty thousand questions, the way they do at that age. In order to pay I had to let go of his hand and look at the shopkeeper, which literally only took a second. Two seconds later I reached down to grab him only to find he had completely vanished. When you realise that your heart literally feels as if it has been wrapped in ice. You panic and start thinking all sorts of nasty things have happened, while trying desperately to keep calm. I tried to think like a child, he had been told to stay still where could he have gone? I asked the people in the queue, they had not seen him. I checked the shop, he was nowhere to be seen. The only other option was he had gone outside for some reason.

Fortunately it is a pedestrian precinct but at either end of the street are very busy main roads. I dreaded to think what could have happened. Outside the shop there was no sign of my son either and at this point I was really panicking. I had absolutely no clue where to look, he could have turned either way down the street and as it was so crowded I had little hope of spotting him. Fortunately at that moment I spotted a policeman walking up the street. I went up to him and told him what had happened. He was brilliant, he got straight onto the radio and the CCTV people. Fortunately an elderly couple had seen my son running up the street, grabbed hold of him and phoned the police. When I heard the news I can’t even describe the feeling, I was just so relieved it was untrue.

Luckily this story has a happy outcome and we learnt a lot from it. I had always told my son if he was lost to stand still, that advice just went out the window at that moment. He however learnt from this incident and I never had to worry about him running off again. When I asked why he had gone up the street it turned out he had thought I had left him behind and gone for the bus without him. He had been trying to find his way to the bus stop. I know I am not a perfect mother, but I would never abandon my child in the middle of town with no money!

I hope none of you ever have to experience a nightmare like this but there are some simple things you should tell your child in case it ever happens.

If you are lost, stand still as mum will be looking for you. If you move you can’t be found
If you are in a shop go and tell a person behind the counter. If you are not in a shop and see a policeman tell him
Teach them your phone number and your address. If they are too young to remember put a piece of paper with this information in their pocket and let them know it is there.

Aspire: The Calorie Burning Soft Drink

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

Aspire is a new cranberry flavoured soft drink that claims to burn 200 calories from just drinking a can. This sounded completely mad to me, just drink a can and you get rid of 200 calories. This is apparently the equivalent of doing an hours worth of light calisthenics or strangely enough bathing a dog, so if it works it is pretty amazing.

The cans are taller and slimmer than a normal soft drink can. I loved the white background with the red bushes and almost oriental writing. I thought the cans looked very stylish and definitely stand out in the fridge.

The drink is cranberry flavour so unsurprisingly it is red in colour. As well as cranberry the drink contains green tea, guarana extract and l-carnitine. These are all ingredients that are meant to be good for you and raise the bodies metabolism while lowering the appetite. I found the taste rather nice. It has the tangy taste of cranberries but you can also taste a hint of green tea in the background which mellows the cranberry taste. I found it really refreshing and enjoyed it. My husband was not at all keen on the taste, he took one sip and refused to drink any more. He is not a great lover of cranberry juice anyway so this was not surprising. My son however loved it which I did not expect.

Aspire burns calories as the ingredients in it create a thermogenic reaction in your body which acts to increase your metabolism. The drink was tested at Leeds Metropolitan University. A group of volunteers of differing ages and weight ranges drank a can of Aspire then three hours later the average number of calories burnt was measured . I am not sure how they measured this but they found the average calories burnt was 209 kCals . I wasn’t able to measure this for myself but I did however notice that the drink did suppress my appetite. After drinking I did not get hungry at the time I would normally be craving a snack.

It is worth noting that each can of Aspire only contains 5 calories. Each can does contain natural caffeines, the equivalent of a standard sized cup of coffee. I did not notice the caffeine the way I would in some energy drinks that are on the market today. It is recommended that you drink no more than four cans a day, possibly a can in the morning to get your metabolism going and a can with a healthy lunch to keep you on the go. As a drink it can be enjoyed in a variety of ways, I found that drinking it cold over ice cubes was really nice.

At RRP £1.75 for 250ml it is expensive. I would be tempted to use this while I am at work as I do not get much exercise during the day. I would hope that it would help me to lose some weight but without trying it for a longer period I am not sure. It is a nice refreshing change from diet coke and it definitely stopped me reaching for the chocolate snacks.

For more information: http://aspiredrink.co.uk/