OMG!! I am Literally Drooling!! This is one of my favorite websites. We are soooo close and yet so far away right now and missing the March show, argh! Who wants to meet me in September??? Oh my this is beyond YUMMY, enjoy 🙂
Wow, What a great article, I learned a lot and thought you might enjoy it too! This is what we hope to do in the future, taking people on Tours. Would you want to come be our guests and have us be your tour guides? Three-day trip to Paris includes shopping, cooking, dining class
Source: Market lessons in Paris
Photographed by Taylor Jewell
As the fashion flock settles down in Paris for the last leg of the spring 2015 collections, that age-old question resurfaces once more: What is it about French women? The country’s unofficial motto—to bear the torch for a kind of covetable, casual cool that relies heavily on mussed-up hair and minimal makeup—is on full display this week in front rows and sunny sidewalk cafes alike. “In each country, I think there is an idea of what beauty is,” suggests the Paris-based editorial makeup artist Violette. “But for the French, it’s very particular: What we want is to be ourselves—not a better version of ourselves. We feel like it’s better to be used to something than to try to change it. So we think: What style can I have with this face, and with this hair? That mentality is 100 percent French.” Still, she admits, there are a few local secrets for how to look perfectly imperfect, without ever trying too hard. Here, Violette offers a glimpse into the French girl’s beauty bible with her eight essential rules for a Paris-approved definition of pretty.
Rule #1: Prep (Don’t Primp)
“French women treat their ‘base’ as best as they can—so we try to have amazing skin, and an amazing body, and amazing hair, so we don’t have to do too much else,” says Violette. Her complexion routine happens to be fairly involved, but we’d expect nothing less from a disciple of the school of Joëlle Ciocco, the legendary Parisian facialist whom Violette calls “a skin god.” After massaging away all of the day’s impurities with La Roche-Posay’s cleansing milk—always with her fingertips to increase circulation—Violette rinses with water and follows with the brand’s calming cream. “Then, in order to make my skin drink, because it needs nurturing, I use these little glass capsules that you break open. One is called ‘granions de manganèse,’ and the other is ‘granions de sélénium.’ I get them from the pharmacy,” she explains. As a final step, Violette slathers on a gel cream called Oxelio Topique, another French-pharmacy staple. “It helps my skin fight aggression, like stress, pollution, and bad food.”
Rule #2: Practice Everything in Moderation
“The way to have good skin is not actually about what you put on your skin,” Violette admits, in spite of her multistep facial routine. “It’s about what you eat. French women try to eat organic as much as possible—and as little sugar as possible. We’re more concerned about sugar, not so much low-fat.”
Rule #3: Only Go to the Gym If You Feel Like It
“A French woman is like a wild horse—she is very rebellious, and she’d rather kill herself than go to the gym!” Violette says with a laugh, before admitting that the workout trend is starting to pick up steam in the City of Light, even though it was nearly nonexistent a decade ago. “We need to take pleasure in everything we do,” she continues, explaining that even newly popular classes, like the barre method, should be fun—the philosophy being: “Never get stuck in a hardcore, rigid habit.”
Photographed by Taylor Jewell
Rule #4: Forget About Blowouts
“French women want amazing texture with their hair,” confirms Violette, referencing that coveted lived-in look commonly seen on the likes of Caroline de Maigret, Constance Jablonski, and Aymeline Valade. “We like to shampoo our hair, air dry, then wait a day. When you wash your hair the first day, you don’t know what to do with it. The second day, it looks much better,” she says. (If and when Violette does get a blowout, she is careful to plan her appointment for the day before she actually needs to look good.)
Rule #5: Commit to Regular Cuts
“French women like their hair to be very healthy and shiny, so when they wear it messy, it doesn’t look dry and damaged,” according to Violette. “We’re much more about looking for a good haircut than a good styling product,” she continues, pointing out that most French women like short or shoulder-dusting crops—which, admittedly, puts her own chest-length hair at odds with her countrywomen. “I actually get my hair cut at Eva Scrivo in New York,” she admits. “I find that American hairstylists understand the long-hair culture more than the French!”
Rule #6: Say Yes to a Red Lip
Bardot and Deneuve might be best remembered for the black, feline flicks they scrawled onto their upper lash lines, but French women don’t really use eyeliner, says Violette. “I think we’re more about red lips,” she claims, listing MAC’s cult-classic lipstick in Ruby Woo as one of her all-time favorite bullets. “That’s the identity of a Parisian woman.” It’s how you wear a crimson or scarlet shade that makes it fully French, though, she insists. “Red lipstick is a fashion accessory. So we won’t wear any other makeup with it. Then our hair has to be messy, our skin has to be perfect, and we’ll just wear jeans and heels because the lipstick makes the statement.”
Rule #7: Bring Light (Not Shadow) to the Face
“We never contour,” Violette says of an inherent dislike of brownish shading powders or creams. “For French women, contouring is very scary, because it changes the sculpture of the face. It’s much more about adding highlights,” she explains. “They catch the light on the cheeks, and on the Cupid’s bow of lips so you don’t really need contouring.”
Rule #8: Make Your Smoky Eye a Little Bit Messy
“The other makeup that is really French to me is the smoky eye—but it’s a messy smoky eye with a creamy texture,” contends Violette, who points out that dégradé lids, “sparkly effect” shadows, and perfect lashes are the opposite of chic, as far as French women are concerned. “We’re very lazy! We’ll just use one product, put it all over, and blend it with our finger. Then we’ll [groom] our eyebrows, put on a bit of blush and concealer, and go.” Her personal favorite is Dior’s black eye pencil, which she applies at the roots of her lashes to make them appear darker, before scribbling it across her entire lid, “like a kid would,” and smearing the pigment with a tiny bit of pharmacy-procured calendula lip balm. “Just a little bit so you have dewiness. French women don’t like powder shadows,” she adds firmly. “They’re too complicated.”
Source: http://www.vogue.com/1908285/french-girl-beauty-secrets-hair-makeup-artist-violette/
Saw this cool post on one of our favorite, fellow Bloggers. Thought you would enjoy it and be sure to click on the photo. Cool read! Enjoy with your morning coffee
The stony gaze of the statue upon his executor says it all. Most of the bronze “men” that once watched over Parisian streets and public squares of the French Third Republic met a most […]
Source: Where the Statues of Paris were sent to Die | Messy Nessy Chic
Three Pittenweem Terriers, photographed in 1899
Scottish white terriers were recorded as early as during the reign of James VI of Scotland, who reigned between 1567 and 1625. The king ordered that a dozen terriers be procured from Argyll to be presented to the Kingdom of France as a gift.[3] Sandy and brindle coloured dogs were seen as hardier than those of other colours, and white dogs were seen as being weak.[22] At various times during the breed’s existence, it has been considered a white offshoot of both the Scottish Terrier and the Cairn Terrier breeds.[23]
There were also reports of a ship from the Spanish Armada being wrecked on the island of Skye in 1588. This ship carried white Spanish dogs, whose descendants were kept distinct from other breeds by Clan Donald, including the families of the Chiefs.[24] Other families on Skye preserved both white and sandy coloured dogs. One such family was the Clan MacLeod, and it was reported by their descendants that at least two Chiefs kept white terriers, including “The Wicked Man” Norman MacLeod, and his grandson Norman who became Chief after his death.[22]
George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll, chief of Clan Campbell, bred a breed of white Scottish terriers known as the “Roseneath Terrier”.[25] Another breed of white Scottish terriers also appeared at this point, with Dr. Americ Edwin Flaxman from Fife developing his line of “Pittenweem Terriers” out of a female Scottish Terrier which produced white offspring.[25] The dog seemed to produce these white puppies regardless of the sire to which it was bred, and after drowning over twenty of these offspring, he came upon the theory that it was an ancient trait of the Scottish Terrier that was trying to re-appear. He rededicated his breeding program to produce white Scottish Terriers with the aim of restoring it to the same stature as the dark coloured breed. Flaxman is credited with classes being added to dog shows for white Scottish Terriers towards the end of the 19th century.[26]
This was quite interesting fact and surprise to us as Darren’s family is the Campbell Clan, so now we know he had something to do with Bella being here! haha no wonder she’s a Daddy’s girl!
A West Highland White Terrier, photographed in 1915
The person most closely associated with developing the modern breed of West Highland White Terrier is Edward Donald Malcolm, 16th Laird of Poltalloch. Malcolm owned terriers used to work game, the story told is that a reddish-brown terrier was mistaken for a fox and shot. Following this Malcolm decided to develop a white terrier breed, which became known as the “Poltalloch Terrier”. The first generation of Poltallochs had sandy coloured coats, and had already developed prick ears which is a trait seen later in the modern breed.[25] It is unknown if the Poltalloch Terriers and Pittenweem Terriers were interbred.[25] In 1903 Malcolm declared that he didn’t want to be known as the creator of the breed and insisted that his breed of white terriers was renamed. The term “West Highland White Terrier” first appears in Otters and Otter Hunting by L.C.R. Cameron, published in 1908.[25
Not your typical travel Blog but we are in Scotland and England tracing our Ancestry.com so we decided to figure out Bella’s as well! Found it interesting to know where she came from. I had always heard the hunting story as the original of White Westies but did not know the other stories that seem to have come before the Malcolm original stories.
The Irish and French love Scotties, closely with English and Scots. You see them all over walking down the street but are more rare in the US. Personally, we of course think they are the best and cutest! But we know those are fighting words so don’t take offense as we are very biased 🙂
