Golden Goose Bucking The Trends And Shopping Secondhand

The Secret is not getting what you want but wanting it after you got it

Poppy

2026-08-08T08:10:00.0000000 2026-08-08T08:32:29.6200000

Have you ever really wanted something, you couldn’t afford it or just didn’t get around to buying and then all of a sudden the item just doesn’t hold the appeal anymore.

This happened to me with two trainers the chunky dad shoe Japanese inspired Balenciaga Triple S, the S stands for sole. The ones with the size, 37, 38 on the toe. Gosh did I want a pair of those, I actually bought a pair secondhand and then all of a sudden they weren’t so cool or desirable anymore.

And then the Golden goose Superstar, can you believe the first pair featuring the intentional hand-scuffed, "lived-in" vintage finish appeared almost 20 years ago now in 2007.

Crazy prices I remember trying a pair on and realising they run very big. I found a pair on EBay a few years later I could afford a size down for me, but didn’t buy immediately, missed them and ended up regretting not purchasing. Have you ever done that? So annoying. In the end I never purchased opting for P448 instead. I have two pairs, high tops and low tops I love, less well known but I like that, not something everyone else has got.

Yes, people still wear Golden Goose sneakers, but they are no longer the peak trend they once were. That happens. One minute everyone is wearing something and the next the buzz has worn off. Trend-focused fashion circles have largely moved on to retro, low-profile or chunkier athletic trainers (like Adidas Sambas, New Balance, and Asics), some owners still wear them as a comfortable, durable everyday staple but I definitely don’t see them so much anymore.

They have a dated vibe for me now, not because the Peak Hype Has Passed but because I’ve

Shift to Alternatives like my On cloudmonsters I absolutely love.

Like many style enthusiasts we have swapped our distressed luxury shoes for retro runners, colorful low-tops, or functional walking brands.

I am sure in a few years time the will super star will reemerge as a classic.

Don’t get me wrong I still love the Golden Goose brand and when I am feeling flush I do love to browse the store. Although I must confess almost all the things I have purchased have been secondhand, the prices are a bit eye watering.

My latest wardrobe addition is this amazing pair of embossed cowboy style boots I paid about £70 for. When I saw them I didn’t wait. Not making that mistake again. When I checked online a new pair of boots from Golden Goose this season will set you back around £700 - £1000 so I am pretty happy with mine.

And they are not going out of style anytime soon.

Duty Free Shopping - The Best Thing About Travelling Jet 2

When we flew we got an extra 30% off on Jet 2

Amanda Moss

2026-08-07T08:43:00.0000000 2026-08-07T09:15:15.5030000

We went to America at Easter, flew Virgin and couldn’t believe it when we discovered there was no duty free shopping on board. All part of the holiday vibe having a shop in duty free.

Jet 2 on the other hand, who I’d have expected to have a rubbish duty free selection was the complete opposite. In fact the duty free shopping in the on board magazine was brilliant. The variety of products especially in the beauty section was great, quite a few things I’d never heard of to try and some lucky dip like selections where for a discounted price you got a whole array of travel size products to try for a reduced price which I thought was a great idea and offering.

The perfume selection was OK, more run of the mill fragrances like Marc Jacob’s, Boss and Paco Rabanne but if your preference is something well known you’ll be OK and the flight attendants had open bottles available for you to test so that was good too.

My advice would be don’t wait until you return journey. A couple of things I didn’t get thinking I’d purchase on the return weren’t available by the time we were coming back, obviously all the stock had been snapped up by the outbound passengers, taking advantage of the summer sale now in giving an additional 30% off the already very competitive tax free prices.

Flying Jet 2 from the UK, was not too bad. The queues we managed to avoid by arriving at the airport early. The food wasn’t brilliant onboard, but even if you are on a scheduled flight sitting in first class the food can be ropey so didn’t expect too much here.

We did buy the scratch cards onboard too which was fun, the incentive the scratch card money was going to charity and we did win, £20 to spend on board. More Duty Free.

The Duty Free on board shopping was the highlight for me. I’d recommend anyone travelling Jet 2 this summer, don’t go mad in the airport. Save some of your cash to splash on board.

Best part of the flight for me.

Art Analysis: Six Works That Choreograph Desire, Rest and Invisible Labour - Edwards, Doisneau, Gauguin, Magritte, Vettriano, Stock

An Observer’s Perspective of Six Very Different Artworks

Tara Chirpy

2026-08-06T06:00:00.0000000 2026-08-06T06:35:28.4530000

Harvey Edwards Legging Warmers, was the first poster I ever bought, and then a framed print of Robert Doisneau The Kiss, Spring 1950.

Later I was captivated by Jack Vettriano’s most famous painting, The Singing Butler 1992 which hung in my home for quite a few years, before being replaced by an art print of Paul Gauguin The Siesta which hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC. The Butler’s in Love painted by Mark Stock which hangs in Bix a two story dining room in San Francisco and then the copy of Rene Magritte’s painting Le Maître d'École (The School Master) which hangs in the bar at The Beaumont Hotel in London.

What could a pair of woolly leg warmers, a Parisian kiss, a tropical siesta, a lecturing crescent moon, and two punctilious butlers possibly have in common? For me, the thread is choreography: each image arranges bodies and attention, service and desire, rest and readiness. Seen together, these six favourites sketch a quiet map of how we move through the world and how the world, in turn, composes us. I wanted to explore how these works of art have become not necessarily my favourites but the most resonant and easy to recall and why.

Harvey Edwards’ Leg Warmers begins with near-silence. We’re offered not a face but a fragment: calves pressed to a barre, shoes scuffed, cloth bunched. The drama is in the grind, not the performance. This is the backstage of grace, a study of preparation where heat is borrowed, muscles coaxed, and the self is literally held together by elastic and discipline. As an observer, I feel conspiratorial—let in on a secret pact between body and craft. And not just a secret, for anyone who has trained in this art form understands tatty shoes and holey leg warmers are all part of work. The photograph expresses the beauty of the work in contradiction to the wear from repeated practise. The frame edits away the theatre’s glamour to elevate the ordinary labour that enables it.

That editorial instinct carries into Robert Doisneau’s The Kiss (Le baiser de l’Hôtel de Ville), a photograph that feels candid but is famously staged. It doesn’t matter. The lovers are centred, precise as dancers hitting their mark, while the city eddies around them—caps, cars, coats, a café chair askew.

Paris is the grandest of stages and we, like passers-by caught in the tableau, must decide whether to look away or to watch.

When I saw these two young Italians kiss outside Liberty, I was compelled to capture them. My image was not staged. I confessed to snapping the image after seeing them embrace, and told them why.

The image and mine too rehearses a public intimacy that still startles because it exposes how often life’s most private beats rely on the world’s indifferent hum to appear so intensely alive. I wasn’t indifferent when I saw the image recreated in real life 70 or so years later.

Paul Gauguin’s The Siesta turns that hum down to a murmur. Heat thickens the air; figures fold into the shade, bodies arranged not for spectacle but for survival. Time slackens. If Doisneau’s kiss is a held breath, Gauguin’s noon is the long exhale. The geometry of rest here is as deliberate as any choreography: limbs draped, glances averted, the room’s angles doing as much work as the figures themselves. Looking, I’m confronted by the ethics of my gaze—this is a colonial eye imagining ease in a place it exoticised. Yet the painting still teaches the dignity of pause. Rest, it insists, is an art of its own.

Rene Magritte’s The Schoolmaster is the trickster in this company, and perhaps its most literal teacher. He presents an object that is and isn’t itself—nature dressing up as instruction. The scene is stripped down, almost diagrammatic, as if the world has paused to let the lesson land: seeing is learned. After Edwards’ cropped body, Doisneau’s staged spontaneity, and Gauguin’s languid theatre, Magritte makes explicit the pact that underwrites them all. Images do not simply reflect; they propose. They show us how to notice by first unsettling what we think we already know.

That lesson proves useful when we come to Jack Vettriano’s The Singing Butler. It is kitsch to some, beloved to many—a couple in evening dress dancing on a windswept beach while a maid and butler stabilise the scene with umbrellas. The composition is unapologetically cinematic. But look at the servants: their labour is the weatherproof frame within which romance can take place. The butler, like Edwards’ barre, is a support hidden in plain sight. The couple’s poise is a duet with the wind, yes, but also with the hands that keep their world from blowing away. The painting is about love, certainly, but it is also about the infrastructure of love. The first time I saw it it conjured a desire to connect completely with another person for me. I was looking inside the painting for something sadly lacking in my own life at the time. I saw myself dancing in that red gown with the wealth and status of the women in the painting.

Mark Stock’s The Butler in Love narrows that theme to a single, aching figure. Here the servant is centre stage at last—gloved, immaculate, immobilised between duty and desire. The room’s glow is all red velvet and glass, but the most brilliant surface is his restraint. We read the scene like detectives: a lipsticked rim, a fire that burns for someone else, a gaze kept just off target. If Vettriano shows service as choreography, Stock shows it as suspense. The butler tends the moment that excludes him, an artist of unspent feeling.

Across these works, certain motifs keep returning. The partial body versus the full scene; the tension between spontaneity and staging; the quiet heroism of preparation and support. Objects act like characters—leg warmers grip a destiny, umbrellas argue with weather, a leaf pretends to be a blackboard, a champagne glass blushes with someone else’s mouth. And time behaves oddly. It stops for a kiss, stretches for a nap, splinters into rehearsal beats, loops back in a surreal lesson, elongates in longing, is snatched from the gale for a dance.

Most of all, these images recalibrate where we place importance. They make peripheral actors central: the apparatus that holds an arabesque; the city that dignifies a gesture; the heat that compels repose; the idea that rearranges perception; the invisible labour that makes romance look effortless; the person whose love is a masterpiece precisely because it remains unsaid. As an observer, I’m reminded that looking well is its own form of service—an attention that steadies, that shelters, that allows a scene to become itself.

So, six very different works, one quiet kinship. Each one sets a stage, declares a weather, appoints its supports, and then asks us to notice not just the obvious subject, but the system that bears it. The miracle is not simply the kiss or the dance or the dreamlike leaf. It is the care—practical, ethical, imaginative—that makes such moments possible and, just as often, keeps them from spilling into loss. In that sense, every viewer is a kind of butler too: holding the umbrella of attention steady while art does what it does best—teach us how to see.

All these pictures have had a memorable impact. I love art and of course if I were to write comprehensive list of all the paintings artists and photographs photographers I admire there would be so many to add. For now I just wanted to think about these six and connect them with an imaginary thread.

Art is subjective, why we love what we love is unique to us. What we take from a work of art is different for everyone and yet without the creative process I think life would be profoundly lacking.

Art lovers think back to the paintings, sculptures, photographs you have sunk into. The works you have lived with, lived in, in posters and postcards and prints, few of us can afford originals by great artists. These are the paintings or photographs that have changed us and linking them together is an exercise in defining who we are.

The Death Of A Golden Era. Why The UK Is Running Out Of Fashion

Recycled designer luxury is short in supply

Shirley Yanez

2026-08-05T09:19:00.0000000 2026-08-05T09:33:25.2700000

The Death of the Golden Era: Why the UK is Running Out of True Vintage Luxury

In 2005, we stood on a London pavement, homeless, penniless, and watching one of us fight a life-threatening illness. Just months earlier, our lives were defined by Los Angeles sunshine and a millionaire lifestyle. Then, the stock market crashed. It took everything. To buy food, we had to sell off a museum-quality collection of vintage Chanel jewellery to hungry West Coast collectors. We watched Gripoix glass cuffs and rare 1980s chain belts—pieces that should have graced galleries—go for a pittance, exchanged for the raw currency of survival. Going from wearing luxury couture to dressing in rags is a profound psychological shock. When you have spent a lifetime appreciating the weight, the drape, and the immaculate construction of a well-made garment, synthetic mass-market clothing feels like an insult to the skin.

Our survival mechanism wasn’t just to look for clothes; it was to hunt for our identity.

[ The High-Thrifting Blueprint ]

Affluent London Boroughs (Kensington, Chelsea)

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Unchecked Donations (Volunteers missed couture)

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The "Hollywood Look for Less" (Butlins & P&O Cruises)

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Resculux Studio (Market Harborough Archive)

The Golden Age of the Golden Hanger

We turned to high-thrifting. In the mid-2000s, London’s most affluent neighbourhoods—Kensington, Chelsea, Richmond—were goldmines. At that time, charity shop volunteers were often well-meaning locals who couldn't tell a mainline Dior jacket from a high-street replica. They priced by item type, not by label.

We had the one asset money couldn't buy: an educated eye. We rescued discarded treasures from the rails, rebuilding our lives one bargain masterpiece at a time. On any given Tuesday, a dusty rail in South Kensington might yield a pristine, heavy-silk Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche blazer or an archival Hermès silk scarf hidden in a basket of cheap neckties, priced at just a few pounds.

That hustle quickly evolved. Recognising that the British public was developing a hunger for aspirational luxury, we created a live swapping show called The Hollywood Look for Less. We successfully pitched it to Butlins, and later, P&O Cruises.

On stages across the ocean, we gave away genuine designer finds after live makeovers. Guests who sat down in casual holiday wear walked away carrying a piece of fashion history—like the time we gifted a thrilled holidaymaker an immaculate, structured Thierry Mugler power-jacket we had sourced for next to nothing, or a vintage Gianni Versace silk shirt that lit up the theatre stage. We were looking good, doing good, and teaching audiences that style was about curation, not retail price tags.

The Antigua Epiphany

It was during a cruise stop in Antigua that the scales fell from our eyes. On that small, beautiful island where resources were tight, we spotted a basic, European-made bikini with a $300 price tag. High import duties and isolated supply chains had turned a simple piece of nylon into an elite luxury.

We stood on the sand and asked ourselves a prophetic question: What happens to an island nation like the UK if it suddenly runs out of quality clothing? What happens if the supply chain of beautiful things breaks?

Today, two decades of that obsessive curation live inside Resculux, our private styling studio in Market Harborough. Private clients come to us to touch, rent, and buy history. Our studio has become a sanctuary for women rediscovering their power through clothing. Recently, a prominent local businesswoman came to us ahead of a major industry gala. Disillusioned by the flimsy, uninspired gowns available on the modern high street, she felt completely invisible. We styled her in a rare, structured 1990s Alexander McQueen piece from our archive. The heavy tailoring and flawless silhouette completely transformed her posture; she went on to win her award, later telling us she hadn’t felt that powerful in her own skin in over a decade. Another client, preparing for a high-profile media appearance, avoided the usual luxury department stores and instead chose a vintage Gucci by Tom Ford suit from our collection—proving that true heritage clothing carries an authority that modern luxury simply cannot replicate. But from our vantage point on the frontlines of the resale market, we are watching our Antigua prophecy come true. The UK is running out of quality fashion.

THE APPAREL TIPPING POINT

Past (The Golden Era):

[Heritage Fabrics] ──> [Long Life Cycle] ──> [Premium Resale Archive]

Present (The Crisis):

[Fast Fashion Rubbish] ──> [Micro-Lifespan] ──> [Landfill / Incinerator]

The Island of Rubbish

The modern obsession with thrifting—fuelled by economic hardship, the war, and peer-to-peer apps like Vinted—has fundamentally broken the circular fashion economy. Everyone is a reseller now. But while the demand for second-hand clothing has exploded, the quality of available inventory has collapsed.

The charity shop rails we once picked clean of silk, wool, and heavy-gauge vintage hardware are now choked with cheap, disposable rubbish. The rise of ultra-fast fashion means that the donations landing in sorting rooms today are made of oil, not thread. They are synthetic, poorly stitched garments designed to survive three washes before losing their shape. This stuff cannot be recycled. It cannot be beautifully repaired. It holds no emotional or financial value.

We have become an island drowning in textile waste, while the genuine luxury recycled fashion market is being starved to death. When the current archive of beautifully crafted 20th-century heritage garments is completely bought up, digitized, and locked away in private collections, there will be nothing left to replace it.

We survived a financial crash by recognizing the intrinsic value of a well-made garment. As we look to the future, the real crisis isn't a lack of clothes—it's that we are burying our history under a mountain of disposable garbage, forgetting what true quality ever felt like.

Once Upon A time In The Midlands Movie

Shane Meadows’ 2002 comedy-drama

Shirley Yanez

2026-08-04T07:34:00.0000000 2026-08-04T07:44:25.2100000

Once Upon a Time in the Midlands: A Heartfelt, Nostalgic Masterpiece That Hits Close to Home.

Watching Shane Meadows’ 2002 film Once Upon a Time in the Midlands didn't just feel like watching a movie; it felt like stepping into a time machine. As someone who grew up on a council estate in Leicester, this film resonated with me on a deeply personal level. Meadows manages to capture the exact texture, humour, and spirit of that era without ever slipping into lazy stereotypes or bleak "poverty porn." Instead, he gives our neck of the woods the epic, cinematic treatment it deserves by framing estate life through the lens of a classic Spaghetti Westerns.

The story kicks off with a uniquely British disaster: a public marriage proposal gone wrong on a daytime talk show. When the gentle, slightly awkward mechanic Dek (Rhys Ifans) gets rejected on national TV by his partner Shirley (Shirley Henderson), it triggers the return of her estranged, smooth-talking ex-husband Jimmy (Robert Carlyle). What follows is a brilliant "high-noon" standoff over the family, played out across terraced streets, local garages, and social clubs.

What elevates this film from a simple comedy into something truly special is that the acting is superb. Every single cast member delivers a masterclass in grounded, human performance: Rhys Ifans is heartbreakingly brilliant as Dek, perfectly balancing vulnerability with a fierce, quiet devotion. Robert Carlyle brings a fantastic, desperate swagger as the returning outlaw. Kathy Burke and Ricky Tomlinson are absolute gold, grounding the film with a sharp-tongued, no-nonsense warmth that felt so familiar it made me ache.

For me, the real triumph of the film is its incredible sense of place. Meadows nails the community hubs that defined my own youth—the smoky social clubs, the bingo halls, and the neat interiors of council homes where there was always a kettle on. It perfectly captures the informal family networks of the estate, where neighbours look out for each other, gossip travels fast, and affection is always cloaked in creative, deadpan insults.

Ultimately, Once Upon a Time in the Midlands understands that true heroism on an estate isn't about violence or flashy charm; it’s about the quiet courage it takes to stick around, look after the people you love, and do the right thing. It is a warm, witty, and beautifully authentic slice of working-class life that made me incredibly proud of where I come from.

Omorovicza London facials: where to book and how to spend £500 on treatments and skincare

Omorovicza in London: the best facials, where to book (Mayfair, Harrods, Liberty) and how to...

Savannah Black

2026-08-03T19:35:00.0000000 2026-08-03T20:29:07.1930000

Omorovicza Cream and Beauty Treatments

Omorovicza skin cream and beauty treatments: Omorovicza London facials, where to book, and how to spend £500 wisely

If your skin is craving mineral-rich nourishment and a serious dose of Hungarian spa know‑how, Omorovicza is one of the most luxurious ways to oblige. The Budapest‑born brand bottles the healing properties of Hungary’s thermal waters via its patented Healing Concentrate, and its London facials marry moor mud, clever actives and a distinctive Hungarian massage technique for visible lift, clarity and glow.

Where to book an Omorovicza facial in London

- Omorovicza’s own booking page: The brand regularly lists London facial appointments and pop‑up residencies on its website and newsletter. This is the safest first stop for up‑to‑date menus and availability.

- Retail partner treatment rooms: Omorovicza often hosts treatment days and short residencies at London’s top beauty destinations. Look for slots via:

- Department stores and luxury retailers (e.g., Harrods, Liberty, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols)

- Select Space NK locations with treatment rooms

- Five‑star hotel spas that list Omorovicza on their brand menu. The Mayfair Spa at the Mayfair Hotel I have read good reviews. I went to the shop at 60 Audley St, London.

How to secure a slot:

1) Check Omorovicza’s site link below and Instagram for current London residencies.

2) Search the retailer’s “beauty services” or “wellness clinic” page and filter by brand.

3) If in doubt, ring the store’s beauty concierge; Omorovicza events book up quickly and are sometimes announced first to store clients.

What you can expect from the treatments:

While the exact menu varies by location, the option I went for on Audley St was the Gold Hydralifting Facial at £150. The treatment was scheduled for 60 minutes but actually lasted about 55 minutes.

London appointments typically include:

Deep cleansing with Hungarian moor mud to detox pores without stripping.

A tailored exfoliation step (often featuring the brand’s Copper Peel or gentle acids).

Signature Hungarian facial massage to lift, de‑puff and energise.

Targeted masking and finishing products based on your skin goals.

Common options include:

Blue Diamond or Gold Hydralifting facials for firming and elasticity

Revitalising Moor Mud or Deep Cleansing facials for congestion and clarity

Illuminating facials for radiance and hydration

Typical durations: 60–90 minutes; indicative London pricing: roughly £120–£250 depending on venue and length.

How to spend £500 on Omorovicza treatments and skincare

Think of £500 as a strategic combination: one results‑driven facial to jump‑start your skin, plus two to three high‑impact products to maintain the results at home.

Below are three focused plans; prices are indicative and may vary by retailer.

1) Firming and smoothing (loss of elasticity, fine lines)

I booked a Gold Hydra lifting Facial the other option was Blue Diamond‑style facial (60–75 min) @£160–£220

I was recommended the following to use at home; couldn’t afford all three. I bought the serum and the mist.

- Gold Flash Firming Serum (peptides, colloidal gold) @£140–£160

- Queen Cream (rich, cushioning barrier balm‑cream for night or winter) @£150–£170

- Queen of Hungary Mist, travel size (for soothing hydration on the go) @£20–£30

Why they say it works:

The treatment sculpts and energises; peptides and the Healing Concentrate reinforce firmness, while Queen Cream they say seals in moisture and supports barrier function. I liked the texture of the serum better than the cream.

- Budget check: @£470–£580. Adjust by choosing a 60‑min facial or swapping Queen Cream for Cushioning Day Cream if you need to land closer to £500.

2) Clear, refined, radiant (congestion, uneven tone)

- Book: Revitalising Moor Mud or Deep Cleansing facial (60 min) @£130–£170

- Buy:

- Moor Cream Cleanser (daily pore‑purifying cleanse) @£55

- Deep Cleansing Mask (weekly detox) @£65–£75

- Daily Vitamin C (brightening antioxidant serum) @£95–£110

- Acid Fix (AHA/BHA night treatment 1–2x weekly) @£85–£95

- Why it works: Professional extractions and moor mud clear the deck; at home, acids and vitamin C even tone and keep pores refined.

- Budget check: @£460–£545. If you’re oily/acne‑prone, consider the Silver Skin range: Silver Skin Saviour mask (~£60–£70) or Silver Skin Tonic (@£55–£65) as swaps.

3) Calm, hydrate, strengthen (sensitive, dehydrated, barrier support)

- Book: Illuminating facial (60–75 min) @£150–£190

- Buy:

- Cashmere Cleanser or Gentle Buffing Gelée (non‑stripping cleanse) @£55–£65

- Queen Essence (lightweight, cushiony essence for layering hydration) @£80–£90

- Cushioning Day Cream (strengthens barrier; spring/summer‑friendly) @£110–£125

- Rejuvenating Night Cream (ceramide‑rich comfort at night) @£120–£140

- Why it works: You’ll leave plumped and soothed; the routine keeps inflammation low and hydration high without heaviness.

- Budget check: £515–£585. To stay nearer £500, skip one moisturiser based on season or choose travel sizes.

How to tailor your spend

- Prioritise the serum: In Omorovicza routines, the serum is your results engine. Choose one that matches your main goal (firming, brightening, clarifying or soothing). I picked brightening. My skin is already pretty clear. They told me firming is for older clients.

- One mask, used weekly: Deep Cleansing Mask or Silver Skin Saviour are high‑impact and long‑lasting per use.

- Don’t sleep on mist and essence: Layering a hydrating essence and spritz increases comfort and glow, letting you use a lighter moisturiser.

I would also recommend watching out for discovery sets and seasonal coffrets: These often bundle bestsellers at strong value which is ideal if you want to sample without blowing the budget.

Pre‑booking and product tips

- Patch test actives (acids, vitamin C) 24 hours before first full use.

- If you’re pregnant or breastfeeding, flag this when booking; therapists can adapt steps and avoid contraindicated actives.

- Time your facial: 3–5 days before an event is a sweet spot for peak glow with minimal risk of post‑extraction flakiness.

- Keep it simple for 48 hours post‑facial: gentle cleanse, hydrating mist/essence, serum, moisturiser; avoid exfoliants and retinoids.

To Sum Up

For around £500, you can pair a targeted London facial with a tight edit of at‑home heroes that genuinely extend your results. You can book via Omorovicza’s official channels or a trusted London retail partner, pick a treatment aligned to your main concern, and build a streamlined routine around one star serum, a weekly mask and the right texture of cream. The pitch is you can expect firmer contours, clearer pores, or calmer, more luminous skin—Hungarian‑spa style.

I loved my visit. The staff were great and my skin did feel amazing when I left. I do like the brightening serum, would I buy again, depending on my finances possibly. If you can afford it it’s a luxurious treat. Is the skincare a miracle, I afraid to say it’s wasn’t for me. Not sure a cheaper alternative wouldn’t provide the same results. As my gran said; you want lovely skin, in my day a bar of Camay, drinking plenty of water and giving up smoking.

Natalies Nails In Leicester Are Turning Away Good Customers Unless You Agree To Gel Polish You Cannot Remove

I was denied service because I didn’t want Gel Polish Preferring My Own Colour Instead

Holly Barclay

2026-08-02T15:36:40.8930000 2026-08-02T15:59:25.3330000

Who can afford to turn business away in 2026? I can’t.

Natalie Nails in Leicester for one. I didn’t say anything at the time but I didn’t like being turned away as a good customer. Why I need a bit of a rant.

Whenever I step foot in a nail salon these days I struggle to get service to be fair, not just at Natalie’s nails the place I’ve been going once a month for about a year. I don’t have gel nails. I just like a regular manicure and pedicure, and I pay anywhere from £50 - £80 plus tip when I go.

Except most of the salons in Leicester won’t serve me now even though I take my own nail polish and base top coat. A nail salon close to my name in Kibworth recently kept me waiting over an hour for service after sending me to Superdrug in Market Harborough to purchase a base coat, the reason they said they couldn’t help me. I left in the end frustrated having watched 5 or 6 other customers, walk ins without appointments be seated ahead of me.

I thought I’d hit the jackpot when a nail tech at Natalie Nails in town on Leicester’s High St, after being told once again I had to have gel and I removed myself from the pedicure chair in protest, said come next door to Victoria Nails and I’ll do what you need. I don’t know how he managed to make it happen when the manager had clearly refused but I was delighted. Although he didn’t really speak English and I don’t speak Vietnamese he managed to convey his idea of what good business is, giving the customer what they needed, I agreed and said I would return to him in future. I was good to my word.

I went back and sort him out a few times always being careful to avoid the person who repeatedly told me no, gel only and everything was going great. Except when I returned recently he wasn’t there and I had to face the “we only do gel nails” guy.

The amazing thing for me was I was with my friend, who I thought would be the leverage I needed. She needed a new set of gel nails, and gel toes but even with her business over £100, he turned us both away and they weren’t busy, lots of empty chairs.

Of course I understand gel nails are probably easier and quicker to do, no drying time and force the customer to return because unlike regular nail polish you cannot get them off yourself but what are these nail salons going to do when no one can afford gel nails anymore and everyone has to go back to the old fashioned way of doing things.

I wonder how many other people there are like me who just enjoy a simple mani pedi and are finding out no one will take your money.

I am old school and believe like when my nail technician said, a good business provides what their customer needs.

I understand if a business doesn’t want to do anything except gel nails then that’s their prerogative, I just think it’s really short sighted and shocking customer service. Especially when I understand they have gone out of their way to help and always leave a generous tip. What difference really does it make, painting nails with gel or with regular polish I provide?

There’s an opportunity out there for someone to clean up. Just saying.

The irony I took the pictures planning to sing the praises of this business because they had changed been flexible on their policy for me and cared more about what I needed than their rules, or so I thought.

I feel better now I’ve had a bit of a rant.

Waitrose No. 1 Patatas Bravas Recreates The Soleo At El Fuerte Las Patatas Bravissima Experience

Nothing could be as good but an absolute find you must try

Holly HY

2026-08-01T13:28:00.0000000 2026-08-01T13:53:54.5330000

A few weeks ago I returned from a short vacation in Marbella and wrote about a food experience I am struggling to forget about.

Something so delicious I plan to return in September to eat it again. Not kidding.

The Patatas Bravissima at Soleo a beach restaurant attached to El Fuerte Hotel is something you would return for, a cross between potato and a waffle that I swear if someone made these alone as a street food offering they would be millionaires. Possibly one of the most delicious unique flavour combinations I have ever tried. Absolute magic and if you are close to Marbella you must go and try for yourself.

Well I was in Waitrose and all of a sudden I saw Patatas Bravas jump out at me off the shelf. I immediately purchased. The desire to repeat the flavour sensations from Soleo’s Patatas Bravissima I didn’t even look at the price, probably cost around £4.00, just check on the Waitrose website and they are £5.00 but they didn’t disappoint and are definitely worth it.

They are spiced new potatoes with a sachet of tomato sauce and a sachet of roasted garlic mayonnaise so you don’t get the crispy waffle experience delivered with aplomb at Soleo in Spain but the flavours with the creamy sour cream dressing, which is actually garlic mayonnaise it says are so close it is keeping the pangs at bay until September when I return to eat this unbelievable dish, never before experienced, once again.

Yes it was that good. Thanks Waitrose this No. 1 Patatas Bravas is a very worthy runner up.

My Eight Best Alcohol Free Beers

8 Zero Alcohol Beer Options Round Up and One Cider

Margaret Louis

2026-07-31T17:44:00.0000000 2026-07-31T18:09:25.3270000

Zero alcohol drinking, beer especially is on the rise, especially amongst young people. Except 16 year olds will struggle to buy it in the UK from supermarkets and convenience stores. Shops hold a common law right to refuse service to anyone they choose, whilst Legally, you can buy 0.0% beer at age 16 in the UK.

In practice, most supermarkets and shops will still refuse to sell it to you. Under the Licensing Act 2003, drinks with an alcohol content of 0.5% ABV or lower are not classified as alcohol, meaning there is no official legal age limit for purchasing them, but retailers say their strict rules are to try to prevent beer drinking habits being established and avoid normalising the branding and taste of beers for minors.

It’s a contradiction especially for young people 16 years and older. When anyone is making a zero alcohol choice they are legally entitled to drink, isn’t that a good thing? It feels like a nonsense when you can work full time from 16 but cannot buy a 0.0% beer in the supermarket.

Gen Z are way more health conscious than their parents, as getting legless becomes less and less fashionable and being in recovery is less like something to be ashamed of and more like an enviable achievement.

Young adults increasingly prefer zero-alcohol and low-alcohol beer as part of a broader cultural shift toward wellness, moderation, and mindful drinking. Data shows that nearly half of young adults actively choose no or low-alcohol alternatives (under 0.5%), driven heavily by health consciousness and less rigid social norms around alcohol.

I shifted to no alcohol beer a few years back. I’ve have enjoyed a bottle of beer, for years before switching over to alcohol free and I don’t think many beer drinkers would actually know which is which on a taste test.

Here are my favourites in order.

Stella Artois Alcohol Free is top of my list. 0.0% abv, (alcohol by volume) it’s a low calorie light beer that you can really taste the malted barley and hops flavours Stella Artois has built it’s name reputation on. They are a budget friendly choice too at only £3.00 for a packet of 4 x 330ml bottles. The larger 440ml cans cost a little more at £5.99

Becks Blue, 0.05% but marketed as 0.0% it’s like a pilsner lager, if you enjoy a stronger Holsten Pils or Red Stripe type brew. This was the first zero I tried and if nothing else is available I am happy to be served this. 6 x 275ml bottles will cost you between £4.75 and £5.00

Two I’ve tried on holiday are a Spanish beer, Estrella Galicia, and a Greek option Mythos, and I enjoyed both although their pilsner light version is darker than a lager. Estrella Galicia 0.0% Negra is also available from the same Spanish brewery. A zero-alcohol dark beer featuring rich notes of caramel, burnt sugar, and toasted almonds less like a lager or pilsner this brew is both darker in colour and closer to a pale ale or a brown ale from a micro brewery in flavour.

I haven’t been able to any of these three beers to buy to go in the supermarket but have found them available in bars and restaurants, for around £3.50 a bottle.

If you are in search of vacation feels you cannot beat the light and crispy flavour of Corona zero. I haven’t seen any snooped about this zero choice before and there’s nothing better to compliment a taco or burrito, if you love Mexican street food like me. Don’t forget to serve with a wedge of lime. I just picked up a pack of four from Waitrose for £4.75 which felt like a pretty good deal.

I am not a Guinness drinker but friends have told me for anyone who loves a Guinness their zero alcohol option, is the best choice for tasting exactly the same as the alcoholic version. It is explicitly brewed using the exact same ingredients as traditional draught Guinness with the alcohol gently removed afterward via a cold filtration system. 4 x 440ml cans are priced at £4.80.

The least exciting of the zero beers I’ve tried is Heineken Zero, a good deal at £4 for 4 bottle but reminds me of Budweiser, that sort of watered down American beer flavour. I bought a few four packs as I asked my local convenience store owner to get Stella Zero alcohol in for me, I like to support local and he invested in Heineken instead. He did sell them in a matter of weeks and not all to me. I am giving myself a pat on the back that some local people have opted for zero beer too since he got them in. He’s buying me Stella Artois Zero next.

There are a few fruity ciders available in 0.0% options. Galipette Rosé 0.0% is a premium French cider and Hogan's High Sobriety Raspberry, a real fermented cider with a tart raspberry flavour. Both are lower in sugar than less expensive choices like Rekorderlig and Kopparberg.

If you love a cider, the one I’d recommend is Thatchers, zero served over ice. They also do a delicious blood orange version Thatchers Blood Orange Zero 0.0%. An individual 500ml bottle generally costs between £1.85 and £2.00, whilst a 4 x 440ml multi-pack of cans ranges from £3.50 to £4.25 at major UK supermarkets so a slightly cheaper option than the beers listed above.

A few of my friends have turned their noses up to a zero alcohol beer when offered, like I’d offered something totally unpalatable and weird. We’ve all got bad memories of grape juice pretending to be wine but the beer (and cider) has come a long way.

Why not get down with the kids and pop a zero.

The bonus, enjoying life and remembering every single bit of it.

My Shopify Journey - How long will it take on Shopify Before I start making Money?

Shopify gets a big thumbs up: Here Is Why

Harvey

2026-07-30T08:49:00.0000000 2026-07-30T09:25:53.5200000

Shopify is the definitive market leader among all-in-one, hosted e-commerce platforms, commanding roughly 28% of the US e-commerce platform market and up to 46% of the hosted store sector globally.

And there is reason Shopify are the market leader in online e-commerce for small independent business with over 7 million live stores globally.

I haven’t tried to build a site in Woo Commerce or Big Commerce but I have built a site using Squarespace. I remember getting so far and then when I tried to add user sign up subscriptions to build my list with a simple email confirmation, the integration was mail chimp I think I couldn’t get it to work and ended up giving up.

The monthly fee for Squarespace is cheaper than Shopify at £12.00 per month.

If you are a budding online shop owner I would recommend Shopify. When I was first thinking about building my own store I asked a few people for help and everyone told me, go through the pain barrier. Your site will be so much better if you build it yourself and although the site construction is quite tricky to master and I spent a lot of time in the beginning repeating the same steps from the help files you really do learn as you go and in the most part because there are so many Shopify partners and experts online looking for clients and wanting to engage you as a potential customer, there’s loads of free help out there to take advantage of.

The other great thing is even if your site isn’t perfect, you can make it look pretty professional, I was surprised how good mine looked even with only a few products up there to begin with.

I pay about £20 per month for my site and a commission to Shopify of 3% on everything I sell which some people find is a lot, I actually think it’s fair enough. That’s their business model and there’s been millions invested in the Shopify tool to make it what it is today.

There are ways to get this fee down by using Shopify’s internal payment processor and also upgrading your monthly plan, something I will probably do when the sales increase and the balance tips.

What makes a good Shopify site?

The better your images are the better your site will look. Fact.

When you create your collections, the buckets you assign your products to sort them and the building blocks of your Shopify site, make sure you give each collection the best image you’ve got. These collection images feature heavily throughout your site and great images sell your site.

I didn’t look at trying a load of different themes, I picked one and ran with it, I liked DAWN. It was simple and clean.

To be honest, experimenting was scary in the beginning, you change something, ruin what you’ve done and can’t get back to what you liked so I stuck with basic fonts and colours. I am sure I may get into fine tuning down the road but in the beginning I just wanted to get selling.

The most labour intensive part of building your site is all the product images and actually adding all your products. It takes a while for sure. Apparently there are AI tools available to help and you’ll get a million emails from Shopify partners saying they can help you sell for a price. I looked into Sanomads which look incredible but with fees to utilise their services estimated at between £5K and £20K I am going it alone for now.

I am not going to tell you Shopify is a piece of cake to master, it’s not. One problem that took me ages to figure out was creating a collection/all collection to override the default “all products” shopify have built in that you actually cannot edit and for me every where I saw it of course it presented the worst least desirable products in my catalogue first.

I won’t explain all the steps here as you can easily find the work around online, which I have done and works fine on my website. I haven’t quite figured out yet how to make the override work in the Shop App but that’s the Shopify journey. One day you’ll have a problem you have no idea how to resolve, and the next you’ll have a eureka moment “ah that’s how that works”

My one piece of advice, keep going, it gets easier. And when you get your first sale, mine was in New York and then California, and then Ontario Canada the sense of accomplishment followed. When the sales start to come it is worth all the brain freeze. You just have to remember when you plant a tree you have to nurture it to watch it grow and it doesn’t bear fruit until the end.

The downsides, Shopify is a bit buggy, especially when it comes to saving product. And the auto meta tags a great tool but will they save when selected NO. I remember using the logo building tool for a few hours, figured it out, created a great logo but the whole thing crashed out at the end, saying I couldn’t download the finished result and when I tried to reboot and start again, it told me I’d used up all my edits. I ended up creating my own logo using a photo I’d taken and slapping on some text in Pic Collage. It wasn’t perfect but hey.

That said all in all Shopify is pretty neat, like a very complex 10,000 piece massive jigsaw, you find the edges and then piece by piece you start to fill in the blanks. Then one day 6-12 months later that’s how long it took me to really feel like I had a site and a business that was doing something, you see the big picture emerge.

Shopify do offer a 3 day free trial. You won’t get anywhere in three days unless you’ve built a lot of websites before. I’d say don’t let the trial time put you off. It’s overwhelming at first. Sign up for the three months at a buck a month and get stuck in. In three months you’ll have a site. You probably won’t have any customers, getting the traffic is of course the hardest part of any web ecommerce business.

The shopify marketing promotes no design skills needed and trusted by millions of businesses. Would I recommend Shopify? YES. Can anyone do it? If you like a challenge and have a problem solving type of brain, like you’ll keep reading, watching You Tube and repeating the same steps over and over until you get it right, then absolutely.

It’s not easy but then what is easy that’s really rewarding and worthwhile.

Shopify is incredible but YOU have to do the work.

Good Lord I am frustrated with Healf

Have you ever really wanted to buy something online and just couldn’t?

Suzy Hutchinson

2026-07-29T08:29:32.5430000 2026-07-30T07:58:59.8100000

Have you tried shopping with Healf? The message, the mantra, is amazing, a British company I’d love to support and shop with on the surface. They’ve got over 13,000 positive reviews on Trustpilot and their testimonials published online are glowing so could it be my experience is in isolation. Is it me?

If you haven’t visited Healf yet it’s a Health and Beauty e commerce website like many others, Face The Future, one Bio Shop, there are loads and a few featured on here except, a bit like beauty pie which charges an annual membership it’s promoting cheaper prices with a recurring delivery, shipping product every month, every three months. They sell a lot of supplements so I can see for a lot of customers this may work well. I was buying something different , a beauty product I wouldn’t be buying on repeat so I was just looking to make a one off purchase at the best possible price.

They are marketing heavily on Google and as I have tried twice to order something I’ve wanted for a while they are advertising competitively priced now I cannot get away from them. Their Remarketing strategy is so effective it has left me shouting “Go Away” at my tablet. I don’t think it can hear me, although I do question that when I mentioned buying a new dog harness in the car and the next day I have a load of different pet suppliers hitting me up, another snoop for another day.

The email marketing is off the charts frequent, all AI generated. I sent them an email explaining my problems ordering and instead of someone getting back to me, now I am repeatedly being asked for feedback on their customer service.

Healf for me is probably the most ineffective e commerce strategy I have ever discovered online. I don’t think I have ever tried so hard to buy something from a company and completely failed.

I have even tried to buy more, take advantage of an offer they currently have running, buy three products and get the fourth one free but when I put the product x 3 I want in my cart it doesn’t add a fourth of the same it adds a £2.00 bar of chocolate. Random I know.

I spent so much time actually trying to get my cart correct without the subscription, and failing to purchase I had to email and politely tell them. After 3 days with no reply I ended up buying somewhere else in the end.

Healf for me is the perfect example of a business over complicating things, incentivising shoppers to sign up for something they don’t really want by offering a cheaper price but if you don’t go for that option none of the other advertised offers work, like the first time shopping discount code and the buy three get the fourth free.

They have this neat screen with plus boxes where you can select the products you want like drag and drop except the product I wanted I just couldn’t get to appear in their catalogue, even though whenever I search for it on Google there is Healf front and centre offering the best price.

And if I get one more email reminding me I’ve left something in my cart I am going to lose it. I appreciate AI and automation innovation is very useful in some applications take the humans away in situations like this and a simple shopping transaction, you’ve got something I want to buy, please sell it to me becomes completely ineffective. And not only that my first experience with the business becomes so negative they’ll never get me back which for any business is a great shame, especially considering the amount of money spent to capture me in the first place.

Now I have the difficult task of unsubscribing. Which I expect will be as difficult as it was to shop.

I am not passing judgement here, they may be a fantastic business, I just needed to vent.

If I am doing something wrong please reach out in the comments. Or maybe check this website out yourself and see if you can make it work for you.

For what I was looking for Healf were offering the best deal I just couldn’t manage to go through their shopping process and actually purchase.

Prai Ageless Throat and Decolletage Cream Neck And Décolleté Treatment For My 50th: Is It Worth It?

I have bought two neck creams to compare

Suzy Hutchinson

2026-07-28T08:32:10.5300000 2026-07-28T11:27:15.6930000

I have to start by saying I have only ever bought one other neck cream in my life before. That was Neogen Agecure extra firming neck cream that was a lot cheaper than Prai and I still have half a pot left of. Yep that good. This product was discontinued early 2020s. So it’s been a while.

I cleanse and moisturise and I like to sunbathe. I do take my make up off every day, body cream after the shower, pedicure once every couple of months but that’s about it in the beauty maintenance stakes. Some might say pretty low maintenance.

I don’t smoke which has helped the anti aging of my skin, I like the sun which hasn’t.

I’ve never had a tweakment, I pretty happy with the way I look although I have just had a milestone birthday, the big 50 and when I saw this neck cream with 30% off in a duty free magazine and Mark had his credit card at the ready I thought why not, I’ll have a go with that.

The before and after pictures were pretty impressive it has to be said and the one place I have noticed is starting to go is my neck and chest area where the skin is getting thinner, I thought it was maybe time to revisit with something a bit more expensive, not that I believe expensive is always better.

I purchased the 100ml size which retails around £50, I got 30% off so ended up paying about £33. You get 50ml for the same price online or you can get 15ml from Boots for £12.50 if you want to give it a try yourself without making a massive investment.

It’s fine, it’s thick and quite a nice consistency, it goes on easily, absorbs quickly and no odour to speak of.

I’ve used it consistently for a couple of months before writing this, as you can see the pot is half empty and can I see any noticeable difference in my neck and decollate area not really.

The first one I tried was cheaper and pretty much the same thing happened. Used it for a couple of months and then gave up.

My conclusion, would I purchase again, probably not. Would I get the same experience from just rubbing my usual face moisturiser further down my neck and chest probably.

Sorry Prai, nice packaging, nice pot on the dressing table. I am not saying there isn’t a miracle product out there for your neck and décolleté. I just haven’t found it yet.

I think the line “Clinically Proven To Transform Your Neck And Decolletage In Just 7 Days” is a little bit of a stretch. My neck isn’t transformed, it doesn’t look any different if I am being completely honest.

Comments and input on this are very welcome.

Kisira Concept Store Found on a Shopping Trip In Fira Santorini

Fira Santorini is not what I expected when it comes to shopping, visit for the views and the...

Sarah Jane Black

2026-07-27T10:47:00.0000000 2026-07-27T13:48:34.9970000

I am sharing this small boutique in Fira, Santorini, Kisira Concept Boutique because I’ve never been in a store quite like it.

Of course Rome is abundant with amazing fashion boutiques, one of the reasons I love living here.

We just enjoyed a week on the Greek Island of Santorini somewhere I had never visited before and having explored the famous cliffside village of Oia (where incidently there is no shopping to speak of) it’s the place with the famous blue domed churches, and when we went absolutely packed I discovered the best shopping on the Island is in the capital Fira.

The shopping I was told was the best on the island, it’s the place where the cruise ships dock and tourists in their hoards disembark to shop so I was expecting an abundance of high end fashion boutiques.

It’s not actually like that at all. We arrived by bus, it was a 10-15 walk from the bus station to the main shopping area, a warren of cobbled streets a top a pretty steep hill. The views when you finally make it to the top, the gift for making the climb. Definitely think about comfortable footwear as these shopping streets are not accessible by car and the cobbles are brutal without comfy shoes. I’d recommend trainers not sandals and definitely not heels if you don’t want to break your neck.

It’s bustling and the merchants care about their businesses but it’s more cafes and artisan studios than high fashion shopping.

If you want to buy gold or gemstones there’s a jewellery quarter where the shops are prestigious with prices to match but the fashion shops were more catering to tourists than genuine fashionistas. Many of the shop window displays were punctuated with a designer piece here and there and I did spot a Missoni shop and a small Dolce and Gabbana store but the stock obviously wasn’t as current as our own flagship stores in Italy.

One shop I did go into, and somewhere I did buy a couple of pieces, although not high designer, was Kisira Concept Store where the friendly service was provided by a man, something I have not experienced before in a smaller boutique only in places like Balmain or Gucci where many of the stylists and retail assistants are men.

This shop was a bit like an art gallery, a collection of rooms you meandered through each with their own personality and creative displays. The merchandising was original and exciting, a mix of high designer and more locally sourced artisan pieces I really enjoyed exploring.

It was cleverly put together some pieces very expensive and some not so, so you could curate a look according to your own budget or just pick up an interesting pair of sunglasses, an unusual pair of shoes or a great beach tote.

For anyone who love fashion especially anyone spoiled by Italian retail, in my view the best in the world, better than Paris or London you are not going to find anything in Fira quite like it, however the vibes and extensive stock at Kisira Convept Store in Fira are well worth a browse.

I will give one heads up, some things in the shop weren’t worth the money charged, lovely things but things all the same you might pick up at a local market for a fraction of the price with a ”I bought this in a special boutique” price tag.

I don’t think I’ve ever been in a store quite like it. It definitely got me wanting to shop.

Celsius Contains 6 Times More Caffeine Than A Red Coca Cola

Live Fit Trademark and Essential Energy Marketing Strap - Not so sure about that

Harvey

2026-07-26T09:03:00.0000000 2026-07-26T09:55:43.0670000

Who doesn’t love a Red Bull or Monster Energiser drink. I always have something like this close to hand especially if I’m pulling an all nighter?

I saw this display in my local supermarket, bought into LIVE FIT on the Point of sale and picked up a couple of cans of Celsius. They cost me £1.90. I tried the peach vibe, the sunset vibe for £1.90 each and I later bought the Guava Lime and Kiwi, not sure why, guess the can appealed and it tasted fine, not amazing, if you like Red Bull it’s going to give more watery and not so sweet. The sweeteners in there, even though it says nothing artificial are artificial. They use sucralose branded as Splenda, which I have to say didn’t give the diet drink after taste you get from say a Pepsi Max or a Diet Coke.

Where the Celsius drinks win out from a “healthy lifestyle” perspective is for the calorie counters. A standard Celsius energy drink has significantly fewer calories than a regular Red Bull or can of coke. A 12-ounce can of Celsius contains only 10 calories, while an 8.4-ounce can of original Red Bull contains 112 calories. But you can taste the difference.

The one thing you will notice after drinking a couple of cans of Celsius, I didn’t realise they recommend drinking only two cans per day because you are going to be flying off of the caffeine in these babies.

I don’t drink a lot of coffee or tea because I am prone to a migraine and the Celsius drinks delivered one major headache for me, three cans over two days. I drank the third can as a pick me up to try and alleviate the headache. It didn’t work.

It was so bad I had to look up what had caused it and here’s what I found out.

Celsius has significantly more caffeine than Coca-Cola, containing roughly six times the amount per standard serving. A standard 12 oz can of Celsius Energy Drink has 200 mg of caffeine, while a 12 oz serving of Coca-Cola only has about 34 mg.

Celsius has significantly more caffeine than Red Bull. A standard 12-ounce can of Celsius contains 200 mg of caffeine, while a small 8.4-ounce can of Red Bull contains only 80 mg. Even if you scale up the sizes, Celsius has more than double the caffeine punch.

In short, the drink tastes better for you and has way less calories than your typical supermarket energy drink but the caffeine is equivalent to downing 4 cups of coffee one after the other and if you live in coffee and or tea anyway you might find adding a couple of cans of Celsius will put you in a hypertensive state rather than the “Live Fit” marketing on the can.

It wasn’t for me, but if thou are a little bit addicted to the wired feeling caffeine produces you could find yourself exceeding the recommended daily allowance.

I say a little bit of the mark when it comes to labelling this product in the “health” category. Low calorie sure, but Red Bull tastes better and for me provides that happy medium caffeine injection.

Not sure Celsius will take off. Although if dental hygiene is a concern. This one won’t rot your teeth. It state clearly in the can it has a very high caffeine content along with 7 essential vitamins and minerals.

I guess you take the good with the bad when it comes to Celsius. Seems to me it’s about extremes. I am just not sure all that caffeine with zero calories is such a great combination.

For me the bad headache is as a warning.

Lamborghini Lamborghini A Tale Of Childhood Memories and URUS Mayfair Dreaming

I didn’t really love a supercar SUV and then I met URUS

Charlie Black

2026-07-25T09:07:00.0000000 2026-07-27T08:37:24.5600000

The first super car I was ever photographed next to was a white Lamborghini Countach, I was about 5 or 6 when the image was taken, me posing model like with one leg outstretched and the opposite hip thrown. The glamour of the car would do that to you even at 5. At the time 2000-2001 it was already out of production but for years probably a decade, before I even had a license, I told everyone it was my favourite car.

It was a legendary wedge-shaped supercar produced from 1974 to 1990, a modern hybrid revival built more recently in 2022. It is universally famous for introducing futuristic styling, scissor doors, and a mid-mounted V12 engine. The one with the fin on the back. I kept the picture for years and although it got lost along the road of life I still recognise this car as my first love if ever I catch sight of one.

It’s a white Countach that creates the memorable sequence in the Wolf of Wall St when high on quaaludes Jordan Belfour (Leonardo De Caprio) tries to drive to the nearby country club to take a phone call from his lawyer because all the phones in his house are bugged.

My budget hasn’t stretched to owning or even driving a Lamborghini yet. It is on my bucket list but whenever I am in London I do make a point of checking out the showroom window in Mayfair and dreaming a while.

The last time I was passing the cars shown in the showroom window were a Lamborghini Revuelto the brand's V12 plug-in hybrid flagship supercar, on display at 20 Berkeley Square, London and a Urus in a imho terrible colour.

A couple of years ago I saw a URUS parked, another unsightly colour a sort of garish orange but the shape appealed to me so much, very sleek and not like an SUV at I snapped a picture. It didn’t have the distinctive branding I should have recognised.

I didn’t really get the foray into people carriers by luxury sport car brands, Jaguar made an ugly one and also Porsche, after the 911 frog eye and the 928 a people carrier SUV just felt like a very expensive come down for yummy mummies with too much money.

When I saw the URUS I did get a pang of who dat car and then of course it turned out to be a Lamborghini.

They are not cheap. Even secondhand you are looking at, well at least £120K the cheapest I’ve found.

The oldest Lamborghini Urus you can buy, 8 years old because the vehicle only launched in 2018. If you look at the oldest possible models (2018 launch editions) with roughly 50,000 miles on the clock, a second-hand Urus currently costs between £125,000 and £140,000.

This new one in the Lamborghini showroom custom paint job included will set you back £214K but get this even if the price tag isn’t an obstacle demand on this beauty outstretches supply.

The Lamborghini Urus SE, which is the plug-in hybrid model, starts at a recommended retail price (RRP) of £213,615 in the UK. Depending on optional equipment, specifications, and taxes, the final price can vary so starting from £213,615 to £214,000 and then up.

If you take all the extras it easily exceeds £221,000 once options like the Akrapovič exhaust or carbon fiber packages are added.

And here’s the really shocking part. Because new orders are heavily backed up into future production years, pre-owned or delivery-mileage models on platforms like Autotrader UK are demanding premiums, with some listed up to £339,975, over £100K more than if you have a relationship with a dealership like HR Owen.

Not what you know but who when it comes to getting the best deal on a luxury vehicle.

Following a really bad experience with Mayfair Motors in Leicester, different league entirely and completely different and unrelated business I unpublished my snoop. From doing a lot of research I know many people were harmed by this car dealership, in the end me included. Fortunately they have now closed.

And just to qualify I have never bought a car from HR Owen, I have no experience of their business or service. I am just Holly Golightly window shopping in Tiffany for the purchase of this snoop.

DRUNCH Restaurant Cafe Where The Staff Make It So Special and a Simple Lunch Becomes Totally Memorable

I visited during The Festival of Eid and what a welcome I received

Jeanie Davidson

2026-07-24T09:21:27.4570000 2026-07-24T12:03:22.2930000

I’ve been meaning to share this for a while. My visit to DRUNCH in St John’s Wood a Syrian cafe slash restaurant, the food isn’t Syrian, the owners are and the cafe reflects the open cosmopolitan warmth I remember of this amazing multi cultural place before all the difficulties this beautiful country has endured.

Visiting DRUNCH for me was a reminder not of war and destruction but hope and positivity. There’s a beautiful vibe here, openess and warmth than resonates beyond the four walls. I completely felt it. I was pleased to support this gorgeous restaurant, I learned later part of my bill goes in support of Syrian refuges. With the latest headlines it is easy to forget the spoils of war long after the journalists leave.

I visited alone, I’d read a lot about this place and wanted to go. On this particular day St John’s Wood was packed with people, women in vibrant head scarves, men in traditional Islamic dress, brightly coloured celebration clothing laughing and celebrating. I felt a little dowdy in amongst the party atmosphere in my jeans and trainers, table for one.

It dawned on me amid placing my order, eggs Benedict and waffles it was Eid.

The most exciting part of my lunch in this colourful international restaurant was I felt transported to another time and place when people of all cultures and class, mingled and socialised together. Where the servers treated everyone with the same warmth and gratitude, excited to welcome you to their restaurant, over the moon literally and humble that you would choose to dine with them.

I was different but didn’t feel excluded, on the contrary, like someone visiting a foreign land I was embraced.

In a fast food culture where restaurant servers are moody and depressed, service slow and customers miserable DRUNCH was a whole 180 degree shift.

The atmosphere was infectious, families taking photographs of loved ones, coaxing children to smile and I found myself being casually included and encouraged to join discussions amongst strangers across tables as everyone shared in the joy of I guess the end of the fast.

The food was abundant, fresh tasty and not expensive. My bill for the eggs, waffles, and hot tea, about £35. I left a £5 tip which I was concerned might be thought a little stingy but my waiter made a point of thanking me, with eye contact.

If you are in St John’s Wood, this restaurant is not on the main high st, but well worth seeking out if you want to have a truly memorable experience.

Of course it would be hard to repeat mine because like Christmas Eid doesn’t happen every day, but the food, the setting and the amazing staff I would return for.

There aren’t many places I’ve been alone and felt immediately totally at home.

The restaurant is open seven days a week from 12 noon during the week and 10am at the weekend until 12pm during the week. 11.00pm at the weekends.

Drunch Regent’s Park venue serves brunch and lunch until 5:00 PM daily, after which it transitions to lowered lighting, candles, and an evening dinner menu. On Fridays the live music event attracts a crowd so if you planning popping in on a Friday night you do need a reservation.

And there is 4 hour parking on Chalfont St, and St John’s Wood Terrace right outside.

This is a Middle Eastern spot with a full Halal menu, the food is really good and fresh but just mentioning as this may be an issue for some diners.

My Sun Hat Research Plus A Few Shopping Pitfalls When Purchasing The Perfect One

It took me purchasing about 10-12 hats before I found the right company

Dora Black

2026-07-23T10:00:00.0000000 2026-07-23T10:32:57.6000000

I feel a bit like Goldilocks, finding a sun hat that is just right has proved more difficult than you’d imagine.

You need experience to buy anything. I think that’s why we make so many shopping mistakes.

I remember going to a furniture store to buy a sofa in my twenties. It turned out to be the most uncomfortable thing I’d ever sat on. It took three more sofa purchases before I finally got it right. Sofa number four has endured, had the slip covers changed twice but it took experience, the right size, the right cushion depth, the right height back, the right fill to ensure the perfect slothing experience.

I say this because buying a floppy hat has proved to present similar challenges. I know comparing a sofa purchase to a wide brim hat is perhaps unlikely but they have presented similar challenges.

A hat on holiday is so much more than a simple fashion accessory, it’s not like a pair of shoes you wear every day and is wore to serve specific purposes. But being an item you don’t wear every day it needs certain specific engineering and dimensions to ensure the perfect one is purchased.

I’ve made a few mistakes as you can tell driven by desire and aesthetics not practicality.

So I’ve devised my list of requirements, pit falls and after long and drawn out hat research, the companies I have looked at include , Pardo Hats, Lock and Co (very expensive), San Diego Hat Company, Gladys Tamez, Eugenia Kim (more a proper milliner than a sun hat company) Eric Javits, (well known British Milliner) Herald and Heart, (the people who made the famous Andie McDowal Four Weddings and a Funeral Hat) Rachel Trevor Morgan, Philip Somerville and Amor y mezcal

Some might say I am a little bit hat obsessed. I dye my hair to I have to protect it from the sun to stop it going orange.

I’ve bought a few high st hats and cheaper hats online in the past, I even bought one from Free People I thought would do the job but the number one problem with a wide brim hat is the floppy brim.

A floppy brim without any structure or what I like to call “modablity” is completely useless. When you wear it, it flops down covers your eyes and you cannot see where you are going.

The brim needs to be at least 6 inches from the crown to the edge if you want complete coverage of your face for sunbathing and shade for reading.

Buying a hat online can be precarious when it comes to fit, hats sized S, M and L as opposed to proper hat sizes 63/4, 7, 71/2, tend to fit smaller than hats that are a little bit more expensive. And you have to separate the hat makers who produce posh hats for weddings and events like Ascot and Henley, and hat makers who produce more functional hats for hiking or the beach.

My recommendation is find a hat that fits you really comfortably, measure the inner circumference and then measure with a piece of string the circumference of your head from your forehead above your ears and around the widest part of head at the back, with both these measurements you’ll be able to ensure any hat you buy online will actually fit.

Two hats I purchased recently, one a bucket hat I actually tried on in a shop and one a gift Grant size XL both had to be given away because they ended up being two big and didn’t provide the wider brim needed for shade whilst sunbathing. The Gant XL was particularly large. My head measures 58cm, on the larger side but it was still too big for me.

I have bought a Monday straw beach hat which was on the expensive side, over £100, it’s a size M and it does fit me pretty well so this is the best purchase to date.

I have hat to sell four other hats on EBay and send one other back during this process, for various reasons, brim too floppy or not wide enough, wrong size or not foldable.

This is something else to consider when buying a hat, if you want to pack it, it has to be foldable. I am not the type to wear my sun hat in the airport.

After all the research and a number of inexpensive mistakes, I usually try to buy recycled I have found one company in America where my next hat is coming from, The San Diego Hat Company. I have actually seen and tried on one of their hats at a vintage fair, I just didn’t buy it immediately and when I went back to get it, someone else had already beaten me to it. Fortunately I remembered who made it.

I have been in touch with the company and they have been brilliant. So if you are a first time buyer looking for a dramatic wide brim hat for the sun, lounging, reading, that’s foldable with a mold able brim that isn’t going to cost you as much as a sofa, he he, the San Diego Hat Company hats are spectacular and they ship worldwide.

Preloved Designer Fashion Online Business For Sale

Fashion designer website and Stock

Shirley Yanez

2026-07-23T07:17:00.0000000 2026-07-23T07:47:30.1370000

Premium E-Commerce Business Opportunity: www.rescuelux.com

Curated Pre-Loved Luxury Platform. An exceptional turnkey opportunity to acquire a fully operational, high-end online boutique specializing in pre-loved designer fashion. Built on a highly optimized Shopify infrastructure, this business features an expertly curated, authenticated catalogue of rare collectibles and investment pieces from the world's most coveted fashion houses.

Executive Summary Platform: Fully customized Shopify storefront optimized for high-ticket conversions.

Inventory Focus: Hand-picked, authenticated luxury collectibles.

Core Brands: Balmain, Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent (YSL), Louis Vuitton (LV), and more.

Business Model:

Sustainable luxury resale (circular fashion) with high profit margins. Target Audience: Affluent eco-conscious consumers, luxury collectors, and fashion stylists.

Value Proposition & Asset

Overview 1. Ready-Made Premium Brand Identity Launching a luxury brand requires months of design, curation, and trust-building. This business eliminates those barriers. It offers a sophisticated, minimalist aesthetic that mirrors the digital flagship stores of top-tier fashion houses, instantly establishing authority and trust with discerning buyers.

2. The Curated Stock Catalogue Unlike bulk consignment sites, this platform focuses strictly on high-end, hand-picked collectibles. Scarcity Value: Features rare, vintage, and limited-edition pieces that appreciate over time. Brand Power: High-demand inventory from Balmain, Gucci, YSL, and Louis Vuitton ensures consistent organic search traffic. Every piece is selected for its excellent condition and investment value, allowing for premium pricing.

3. High-Performance Shopify Infrastructure Seamless Checkout: Integrated with premium payment gateways. Mobile Optimized: Designed for a flawless shopping experience on smartphones, where over 70% of luxury e-commerce traffic originates. Scalable Tech Stack: Built-in SEO frameworks, inventory management systems, and automated email marketing flows. The Strategic Advantage: Why Communities Need Amplification Platforms.

In the modern digital landscape, owning a beautiful storefront is only half the battle. High-end businesses and independent creators need specialized ecosystems to cut through the noise of mainstream social media. Platforms like Poopsnoop fill a critical market gap by providing a dedicated space for communities to share, market, and discover what people are actively selling, doing, or making. Why Peer-to-Step Discovery Platforms are Essential.

Targeted Visibility: Mainstream algorithms penalize organic business posts. A dedicated community platform ensures your business is seen by highly intentional users looking to buy, collaborate, or support. Trust and Authenticity: Luxury consumers thrive on word-of-mouth recommendations. A community-centric platform fosters transparent peer reviews, building the social proof necessary to close high-ticket sales. Cross-Pollination of Audiences: By participating in a shared marketplace community, a pre-loved luxury business instantly gains exposure to complementary audiences—such as independent sustainable designers, artists, and creators.

Reduced Ad Dependency: Instead of spending thousands on unpredictable PPC ads, businesses can leverage community hubs to build authentic, long-term relationships with clients who value craftsmanship and sustainability. Growth and Scalability Potential.

Consignment Expansion: Easily pivot or expand into a managed peer-to-peer consignment model. Live Commerce: Utilize the Shopify setup to launch live-stream shopping events for new drop collections.

Global Shipping: The lightweight, high-value nature of luxury goods makes international scaling highly profitable. This business is perfectly positioned for an entrepreneur, influencer, or investment group looking to enter the booming multi-billion-dollar luxury resale market with little development downtime.

For more details contact Rescuelux.com

Marie France, The Ladies Of The New Cabinet, Victoria Beckham And The Lavender Dress

Does fashion, make up and tights have a place in British Politics?

Holly HY

2026-07-22T09:07:00.0000000 2026-07-25T08:12:03.1130000

And that photograph of the newly appointed top heavy female cabinet that has got everyone talking.

Yesterday the world was introduced to Marie France the UK’s new First Lady, wife of PM Andy Burnham and as he appoints a top heavy female cabinet for the first time in history (even though the big jobs all went to men apart from straight talking veteran Yvette Cooper who leaves the foreign office to become the new health secretary) all eyes are on the girls.

The dress everyone is talking about, The Edith cost £850. Victoria Beckham is across every global news outlet except for all the wrong reasons. And the creases, the dishevelled thrown together looks, the no make up and no tights are also out and proud for all to see. So is that really great for British fashion and British Business? They say any press is good press, which is probably true for the Beckhams and Victoria’s in the red fashion empire but perhaps not so for the new PM.

Is this the new and updated remake of the Hans Christian Anderson classic tale The Emperors New Clothes? As the Daily Telegraph ignore the glaringly obvious and sing the praises of the tribute to British Fashion for the middle classes including the High St, Marks and Spencer’s, Boden and Office Shoes.

As a stylist I hate to say the first thing I noticed when Marie France walked out alongside her husband proudly supporting him was the creases about her midriff. I thought why choose the light lavender Victoria Beckham dress that looked a little bit too small?

The point of investing in expensive beautiful well fitting well cut designer clothing is to make you look and feel amazing. Every fashion designer will tell you that’s why they go to work. And why the drape, the cut, the magic, the illusion a couture dress delivers warrants the high price tag.

I would describe myself as a supporter of women and when the furore exploded online, some pointing out the glaringly obvious, the dress and others jumping to her defence accusing in the most part other women, me included of being nasty, spiteful, mean girls it made us debate in my inner circle is it important how you present yourself to the world in top jobs, high profile public positions. I know Marie France isn’t employed as a civil servant, and she should by rights be able to wear what she likes and to hell with what anyone thinks but could all this unnecessary noise be avoided simply by putting on a different more flattering dress.

Men don’t have these issues, a suit and tie is pretty standard and doesn’t leave room for debate. Women on the other hand have a lot more choice, are more widely critiqued and criticised for their appearance and how they might present themselves and we do tend to love and appreciate fashion and style more on the whole.

Although I appreciate it is not important to everyone, some men do take a greater pride in their own appearance, so the lines are by no means fixed.

When I looked at the array of newly appointed women to the cabinet, whilst the clothes shouldn’t matter, they are all highly educated and if you are clean and tidy surely your ability to do the job in question is the most important thing, however that is not the reality in today’s world.

I think every woman and man on TV in positions of power could gain more respect by making better choices when it comes to their wardrobes and how they present.

I am probably going to get killed for saying it, call me shallow but how we present ourselves affects how people see us, we make sub conscious judgements about people within the first 5 secs, we cannot help it, it’s the way we are wired so running a country requires people who are impressive in every way not just their university credentials.

The ability to win arguments and get people on side to make change for good requires more than smarts and the way you dress and present yourself to my mind is all part of that.

I saw a landscape picture in one of the daily’s of the newly appointed cabinet ministers and all I could think of was “Middle Aged Spread”

It immediately made me think not that these people needed to look like they’re just stepped off a catwalk in Paris but that a pair of tights on old legs or running an iron over the crumpled clothes wouldn’t have gone a miss.

Margaret Thatcher wasn’t the most fashionable woman on the planet, and not that I was especially a fan but she wouldn’t have been seen dead without a pair of tights on at a press call or photo shoot.

TV cameras are very unforgiving and whilst you might not want to wear make up in your day to day life, lots of women find it a frivolous and an unnecessary waste of money and time, if you don’t want to look like you’ve just stepped out of your coffin it’s a necessary part of being in front of a camera, that is if you don’t want to scare the audience you are winning over and getting on side, the objective of a political soldier. You have to be voted in after all to get the job in the first place.

Neither a rant nor a rave I wish all the women in the cabinet congratulations on their new roles and good luck to Marie France as she moves into No. 10 Downing Street with her family.

As a fashion stylist my job is to help women represent themselves on the outside, my passion and sometimes an extra pair of eyes can avert a fashion disaster and what can become a political PR nightmare right out of the gate. Right or wrong, the last thing the new PM wants is everyone talking about his wife’s normal sized tummy.

Tatler and Elle did a pretty good cover up on the fashion policing I witnessed at the cabinet unveiling. And Marie Claire and Stylist Magazine have jumped on the bandwagon castigating people women especially for talking about this by talking about it. Yeah. One person commented “but aren’t you doing the exact same thing” and Nick Luck, fashion design consultant at Saint Laurent “and now you are giving more oxygen to this matter. The article headed up with the worst most unfaltering picture of the dress I have seen to date. Come on Stylist Magazine.

I’ve attached a link to one article introducing the 14 women now running the country, although not really in the top posts, housing, culture, education and health. The treasury, defence, and business all posts retained by the boys.

Fashion disasters can linger long after public policy blunders yet with a tweak here and there these media storms could be so easily avoided by the important people that run our country with one simple hire, a fashion stylist.

Just saying.

Mayfair Library Summer Reading Challenge And Free Entertainment

Don’t forget about the library during the summer holidays

Poppy

2026-07-21T07:57:00.0000000 2026-07-22T07:18:12.4700000

I love the library. I was very fortunate a weekly visit to the library was very normal in our house. I even remember going alone on foot as young as 5 or 6, I grew up in a small rural village to return my books and choose something new. It was my first bit of independence and I loved it, it made me feel very grown up, handing back my books, on time and then browsing the shelves for something new.

I love books, but rarely buy them, I have a few of course but I don’t see the point of buying when you can borrow.

We are extremely lucky to have such a beautiful well run well stocked library within walking distance, Mayfair Library and I have been a member for years. I go every week. Usually after work for an hour or two. It stays open until 7pm Monday - Friday which is great. It’s like Borders or Waterstones without the coffee, I don’t mind that, it’s free.

My friends and work colleagues find it funny when they say coming for a drink? And I say no I’m going to the library but for anyone like me, hooked on books (and films if you have an old fashioned DVD player) it makes complete sense.

You take your books out and unlike the old days when they had to be back in two weeks, you now get a 21 days and you can even extend online up to 14 times if you need to. (Providing no one else has reserved the particular title.) On a standard library card you can have up to 20 books out at a time, which when you think a standard paperback book costs £10 it really is a wonderful public service for everyone in society to enjoy.

Getting married or need a space to host a business meeting or event? The ceremony rooms at Mayfair Library in London are primarily used for hosting wedding ceremonies and civil partnerships, as well as being hired out for business events, meetings, product launches, and talks. This beautiful Victorian library offers two distinct, high-end function rooms available for booking through the Westminster City Council room hire booking system. For a wedding or special event the fees range from £1400 - £2000 depending on the day of the week and the time slot you want, the usual booking is for a 1hr time slot but you can extend this to 1.5 hours or 2.0 hours depending on what you need. The reason I know is because Reg and I looked into getting married at this particular library. Rates to hire out the lovely rooms for meetings and other events start at £123 per hour which is very reasonable for the area. Local hotels are a lot more expensive.

And for anyone with kids wondering how they are going to get through the school holidays, my sister, the library is the best place to take them. Ours has a “Summer Reading Challenge” program running at the moment sponsored by the Arts Council encouraging kids to read with incentives, badges and certificates when reading goals are reached.

A love of books and reading is definitely part of who I am and the Mayfair Library is a beautiful building to find peace and quiet, an escape from the hustle and a local free service I for one really appreciate.

You probably wouldn’t know it’s there tucked in between Harry’s Bar and Mount St Gardens unless you were headed there specifically but I highly recommend walking in and checking it out.

The building alone for architecture lovers and the stunning stained glass windows are worth a look even if you never join and check out a book.

The smell is the very best thing about stepping into a library. So if you can’t get to Mayfair and experience our gorgeous grade II listed building then seek out your own local public library.