Wednesday 21 September 2011

Product Review: LUSH - Lemony Flutter



Image taken from Google Search

Product Name: Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter

Ingredients: Fresh Organic Lemon Infusion, Shea Butter, Beeswax,  Lanolin, Soya Oil,  Organic Cold Pressed Avocado Oil, Organic Cold Pressed Flaxseed Oil,Mango Butter, Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, Castor Oil, Perfume, Organic Cold Pressed Wheatgerm Oil, Lemon Oil,Lavender Oil, Tagetes Oil,Chamomile Blue Oil, Triethanolamine, Stearic Acid,  Cetearyl Alcohol, Gardenia Extract, Citral, Geraniol, *Citronellol, *Limonene, Linalool,  Methylparaben, Propylparaben

Price: £5.95

Size: 50g

I bought this as a random present for my mother who suffers terribly with dry cuticals and often laments the condition of her nails. She has since said it is, and I quote, 'the BEST present anyones ever bought me' (I don't know if this says more about my present buying skills or about the poor standard of generosity from the general public). She uses it RELIGIOUSLY.

It is essentially a little pot of sorbet - it smells like all the zest and eccentricity of fresh potted lemons - dessert in a pot (its sometimes hard to forget that this isn't a food - especially as lemon is my favourite flavour of ice cream!). Its a soft and soothing cutical and nail balm, also championed as the saviour and soother of general rough parts, particularly knees and elbows. You only really need a very small amount of this as the rich, creamy, buttery texture literally melts into the hands. Again I must reiterate - this product is GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT!

The results are noticable immediately, your hands will feel soft and well and truly buttered straight away. I would advise using the product twice a day...perhaps more in winter, or if you are prone to rough, dry, straggly skin around the nails. Also, supposedly because of the bleaching effect of lemons, this whitens your nails (always a perk).

The only cons with the product are that, although its perfect as a small pot for hands and nails, if you do take a liking to using the product body wide, you will find its small stature just doesn't stretch fair enough. Again, as with most LUSH products, it is on the dear side, but does generally last a long time and do a fantastic job. One of the better cutical creams out there!

I rate this product 4.5 out of 5.

Product Review: Angels on Bare Skin

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Product: Angels on Bare Skin

Tag Line: This simple, ancient blend of
ingredients is a worldwide best seller.


Ingredients: Ground Almonds, Glycerine, Kaolin,
Water, Lavender Oil, Rose Absolute, Chamomile Blue Oil, Tagetes Oil, Benzoin
Resinoid, Lavender Flowers, Limonene, Linalool


Cost: £5.95

Product Size: 100g

For those that aren't familiar with LUSH products, LUSH is a company that specialises in moral, ethical, natural and essentially 'conscious' products. They make cosmetics that even the most fanatical vegan will probably not be able to find fault with. Walking into any LUSH store is like witnessing the aftermath of a rainbow colliding with a paint factory and shimmying into a cake stall; it’s an explosion of colours and overwhelming scents and a lot of the products look genuinely edible!

Within these kaleidoscopic, Willy wonka-esque landscapes, you may begin to feel somewhat disorientated and unsure as to what cleanser will work effectively for you. Angels on Bare Skin is suitable for all skin types but particularly for dry skin. Excessively oily skin owners may benefit from using a different cleanser.

Do not be put off by the small size of the pot as this cute container is packed with small, crumbly mounds which last a long time when used sparingly. A pea sized amount is advised but I find double this generally does the trick but I do tend to enjoy ladling my cleansers and moisturisers on with a trowel (to the detriment of my purse). I even share this product with my mum (that's two women cleansing two times a day) and there is still plenty left! A little goes a long way!

You rinse a small chunk of the product under some water and lather it onto the face where it gently builds into a light, refreshing foam. It works in the same way that all cleansers do, only the appearance of the product and its scent (herby and most definitely natural!) indicate that you are using something a little different. It left my skin looking and feeling fresh, dewy, youthful and soft which I was somewhat surprised by. I'd heard good things about this cleanser, but was not expecting incredible, nor such visible results. You then want to (as with all cleansers) wash off with plenty of water. I found the product reviving and invigorating and as it’s such a small and inoffensive little pot, hopefully people won’t be tempted to steal it from you!

With a name like 'Angels on Bare Skin' you half expect to pop a pot and find a choir of squeeing angels playing harps, and it’s certainly got a lot to live up to with its promise of heavenly skin, but I found this product made my skin feel both cleansed and moisturised. That said, the product has its failings - it’s not a 'heavy' cleanser in that it’s not ideal for removing caked on make-up and acne
prone skin may benefit from something equally gentle, but somewhat more thorough. You can most definitely feel the harmonious pitter patter of timid angels but if you are looking for a deep cleanse, you might want a more rigorous product. Also, compared to other cleansers on the market, it is a little costly, and perhaps more of a now and again treat than a staple regular in your beauty routine.

I would give Angels on Bare Skin, 3.5
out of 5.

Sunday 18 September 2011

BRIEFS


Photograph: James Glossop for The Times


Event: Edinburgh Fringe Festival


Location: Gilded Balloon, Wine Bar


Price: £10


Category: Comedy


Fresh off the boat from Australia, testing their charms on far flung audiences are the BRIEFS boys; sexy, shameless and sparkly. This motley crew of outcasts present us with a pseudo-circus of delicious debauchery and fill the air with their own particular brand of sleaze and sweet.  Reacting to the observation that Brisbane is Australia’s ‘cultural black hole’, these guys will entice, amuse and terrify with their glitzy, glamorous, electric, zesty and overwhelming displays of sexuality and power, combining the most passionate promiscuity of female sensuality with the raw magnetizing power of the male form.


The group intriguingly straddle (both metaphorically and literally) the line between decency and outrage, between peacock displays of colour and steely deadpan humour but there’s no denying that these fellas know how to charm and cajole the audiences into a frenzy, filling the air with an expectant excitement that few new shows are able to generate.


Their performances, neatly interlinked (despite the chaos) by endearingly hilarious front man Fez, feels like a dip into both a primal and theatrical world submerged in sequins and muscle which will leave your eyes and your senses feeling violated (but only in the good way).


These boys look, act and feel like celebrities, even before they have broken into a worldwide market, but I’m certain they have a long and bright future ahead of them as purveyors of beauty, bravery and barminess in this ‘boy-lesque’ show that blends all the fun of the fair with the eroticism of cabaret. You have to attend just to be infected by some of these guys gung-ho gusto!

The Karate Kid (2010)



Intended to be the initiation of Jaden Smith into a mainstream movie career, ‘The Karate Kid’, produced by his parents, was championed by Jackie Chan, as being an entirely new venture, but is primarily a remake of the 1984 Karate Kid movie starring Ralph Macchio, the story of a young boy plagued by bullies who manages to overcome both his victimhood and his preconceptions about martial arts in order to triumph over his oppressors.

Jaden plays Dre Parker, bestowed with a suitably stereotypical moniker, who hails from Detroit; a somewhat paradoxically aloof but curious child with cynical eyes who although inherently vulnerable and alienated by Chinese culture and customs, nonetheless possesses an oddly distant warmth. Jaden is only mildly reminiscent of his father; he is neither instantly endearing nor likeable – he slowly encroaches and grows in your estimations as the film progresses. Jaden is ultimately, a fairly confident and cock-sure young man whose humour and light-heartedness emits from a stoic and reserved demeanour, unlike big daddy Will who was always visibly playful. Jaden perfectly captures the torment, suffering, perplexity and homesickness of a young boy ostracised in an exotic land facing barriers of language and uniform. Dre moves from the concrete jungle of Detroit with his mother Sherri (Taraki P Henson), who is, unfortunately, the most glaringly obvious stereotype of the film. Although humorous and adequate, she seems miscast and misplaced, portraying a character alarmingly close to Regina Halls’ Brenda Meeks of Scary Movie. In the midst of the trials and tribulations that young Dre must inevitably conquer, she is nothing more than a squeaky, squawky cheerleader at odds with the nature of the film.

Chan reclaims his role as the peculiar and erratic Master who must train and tame the wayward Dre. Always captivatingly innocent and bewitchingly humble, Chan glows as the sidelined, forgotten expert of an ancient art. Initially sullen and detached, Chan and Smith forge an exquisitely tender friendship that breaches race and age and lights up the screen. Watching Parker transcend from sulky, stroppy child into an obedient but liberated pupil is an empowering experience. The film does not shy away from representing excruciating scenes of violence primarily inflicted upon Dre by the ruthless Cheng portrayed by Zhenwei Wang who encapsulates a cruel, coal-eyed bully who manages to emit a dreaded combination of ice and fire in his dead stare. The fighting sequences are beatifically barbaric, marrying danger with grace, particularly as the two boys face one another as enemies in the ring. But the film does not only focus on fighting, a budding friendship and romance develops between Dre and Meiying, played by the adorable Wenwen Han, one of the few natives to show Dre kindness. Their friendship is touchingly sincere particularly as Asian and Black friendships are not often represented on the screen.

The film also explores race relations from a Chinese cultural perspective, being a homogenous country, the movie reveals the difficulties China has accepting and integrating a black family into their cultural make-up. This is obviously a very realistic issue; a combination of Chinese patriotism, pride, adherence to tradition and almost institutionalised racism, the lack of black faces in Asia and misleading interpretations of black people, means that many Asian people either are very ignorant of black culture or have prejudices towards them which the film inferred in my subjective experience, illumining the xenophobia evoked by the other. Many scenes portray an incredibly tense experience of race relations as Cheng and his friends warn Dre away from Meiying.

The film is slow-starting and slow-burning, languishing on the natural beauty of China, such as the Great Wall and the Forbidden Kingdom in a similar fashion to Visconti’s meandering and breathtaking pauses on Venice in ‘Death in Venice’ but the film finally finds its pace and projects the beautiful story of fearlessness, of honour, dignity and pride and the beauty of working together as a collective team to face the unfair and unjust forces of this world. This film is not perfect, it’s somewhat over long and has been done and seen before, but it is not a bad first film for Jaden Smith to cut his first acting tooth!

Welcome to Pocket Safari!

Welcome to Pocket Safari and thank you for reading!

Who am I?

I am a former English and Comparative Literature student who has a passion for writing and has
known that I’ve wanted a career out of scribbling things down since I learnt how to read and write in school!

I have a passion for happy movies (and horrors), music with a good beat (or a little Frank Sinatra!), animals (of all shapes and sizes), travel (Thailand is next on the list) and of course – writing!

Why is your blog called ‘Pocket Safari?’

I decided upon the name of my blog when I sat and thought about what my intentions for my blog were. I want to bring quick, easy and accessible posts to anyone that may stumble upon my blog. I want my blog to literally be in your pocket – intimate, reliable and readily available. I chose the word safari because I want my blog to address all manner of movies, music, restaurants, holidays, places, magazines and so on and to appeal to people all over the world but more than that, I hope that I can transport people with my writing and send people on an adventure. Sound a bit pretentious? I hope not! I just want people to enjoy my blog!

What is the purpose of my blog?

My blog is essentially a means of storing and showcasing my writing in an easily navigated format. I enjoy writing short stories, poetry, lyrics, interviews, reviews, articles and contributing to discussions, whilst presenting new information, news and entertainment.

I hope that my blog showcases the variety of work that I spend my time creating and that you enjoy perusing!

How can I contact you?

If you wish to contact me about anything you read, please feel free to leave me a comment and I will get back to you. I would be grateful for any comments or criticism (constructive only). Should you be interested in anything I have written or like me to write anything for you, please do get in touch. I would like a future in journalism (or anything that lets me write, write, write!) so if you see potential in my style, please do let me know!

Furthermore, if you have any suggestions for anything that you would like to see on my blog, again please feel free to contact me.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog and I hope you stick around.

K x