Get Ready For Spring 2013 With Bright Colours and Pretty Gathered Skirts

With snow drifts and snowmen inhabiting our parks and gardens it seems a little premature to be talking about Springtime and pretty, colourful dresses. But what better way to cheer ourselves up than to get ready for Spring and plan some colourful, bright outfits to chase away the winter chills.

What Colours Will We Be Wearing This Spring?

The fashion show catwalks of this Autumn/Winter have predicted that we will be adorning ourselves in colours such as emerald, grayed jade, poppy red, African violet, lemon zest and nectarine. The anchor colour will be Monaco blue and of course white is always a staple. It just brightens our day to read the names of these gorgeous colours! Animal and flower prints will also still be high on the fashion agenda.

What Style Of Dress Should You Look Out For To Be On Trend This Season?

We saw many diffent styles of dresses with each designer having their own favourites, but some of the styles we really loved included dresses with cut-outs, peplum and fuller gathered skirts, colour blocking and pencil skirts.

Cut outs add a cheeky little extra to a summer dress and these seem to be a favourite with Victoria Beckham's collection. Peplums and gathered full skirts create a very flattering silhouette and accentuate the waist reminiscent of 50s Hollywood styles. Colour blocking is still a favourite, with two solid colours creating a stylish look suitable for more formal occasions and workwear.

Really the message from the catwalk is there will be a massive choice of stylish and colouful dresses available this Spring, so pick out your favourite colour and build your Spring wardbrobe starting now. We have carried out a little (fun!) investigating on your behalf and found a great website Zalando which has a great selection of on trend styles and fabulous designer items as well as high street names. We are loving this sleeveless Ted Baker feminine colour-block dress, perfect for a Springtime outing! So there is no better time to try Zalando!

How To Create Voluminous Shiny Hair In A Few Easy Steps

Looking through a well known fashion magazine recently, it struck me how many of our most lovely celebrities have amazing, well groomed, and voluminous hair. Even if you are not looking your best or you are going makeup free, a good head of shiny and well looked after hair can totally change your appearance - from plain and relatively uninteresting to cool and glam!

It's pretty easy to create well groomed, shiny, bouncy hair if you follow a few simple steps and use a few of the right products. If you believe that bigger is better then here's how!

• First wash and condition your hair with an appropriate volumising shampoo. When we experimented we used John Frieda Luxurious Volume shampoo and conditioner. We noted as well that these were relatively reasonably priced products compared to many other salon shampoos and conditioners.
• After conditioning, wrap your hair in a towel rather than rubbing it and allow the towel to soak up any excess water.
• Next, whilst your hair is damp, apply a thickening blow-dry lotion or spray from root to tip of your hair and comb through.  Again we used the John FriedaThickening Blow Dry Lotion. Then blow-dry your hair using a large round brush, pulling gently upwards and away from the roots of your hair. 

• Whilst your hair is still warm from the dryer, wrap sections around large velcro rollers and allow to cool whilst you finish getting ready.
• Lastly, remove the follers and gently brush through your hair to create a shiny soft finish.

The video below has more great tips on how to give your own hair lots more volume and shine!

Puure.co.uk A Contemporary And Exciting New Jewellery Store!

We all like to have a little bling to brighten up our days, especially now the end of Summer is near! At Fashion Tips we have a brand new sister site, Puure.co.uk which features many exciting brands, including Designo, Ferroni and Spikes Jewellery from the USA, plus some cool Venetian Murano Glass Jewellery specially imported from Italy.

If you love 925 sterling silver jewellery and contemporary designs, come and have a look around. There is also a great selection of silver toe rings for those who like some glamour for their toes. It's so easy to shop on the site, and checkout and delivery is handled completely by Amazon, so you can be sure you are in safe and secure hands!

Hope to see you there x

How To Have Great Holiday Beach hair .. And Keep Your Hair In Great Condition Too!

If you are about to get away on a sunshine holiday and want to look after and style your hair easily whilst away, or if you just want to create the look of having wandered home after a great day at the ocean's edge, beachy hair is for you.

Beach hair reminds us of the beautiful heads of celebrities such as Elle Macpherson and Jennifer Anniston, and we are pretty sure that they use premium products to create their own beach head styles. There are plenty of products available which promise so much, like defining curls, adding shine, mending split ends, but we think it's so much more fun to create your own individul hair product. It's also a whole lot cheaper than buying a premium hair styling product!

If you want to create your own personal beach hairstying product, its pretty easy to do. If you are wondering why bother and not just pop out and buy something off the shelf, creating your own styling product means you can tailor it to your own hair type, add additional moisturising products if you hair is dry and also add your own perfume. As all the ingredients used are easy to find day to day items it will also only cost you pennies.

You will need:

• Small to medium sized spray bottle
• Warm water and a jug to mix ingredients
• Water (you can use mineral water here if you have it handy, but tap water is also ok)
• Sea or rock salt
• Hair gel
• Hair serum
• An essential oil of your choice (this is not absolutely necessary but it makes your hair product individual to you and adds a lovely perfume to your locks)

Next, its easy! For approximately half a pint of warm water you will need to add two good heaped teaspoons of rock or sea salt (the more salt you add to your mixture the firmer your finished product will be in your hair). Add two teaspoons of hair gel, one teaspoon of conditioning hair serum and about eight drops of essential oils. Mix this together until the salt has dissolved in the mixture, and pour into your spray bottle. Make yourself a cute label and there you have it, your own designer, beach hair styling spray. 

We have tried this out ourselves, and we can confirm it definitely defines waves and adds texture to hair - ideal for a no-fuss, casual day-at-the-beach look. 

Here's How To Create The Chelsea Blow-Dry And It's Thanks To Kate That We Are Loving It!

The Cut

Well unfortunately, you have to have shoulder-blade length hair to begin with, so for those of you with a short bob or crop copying the Duchess will take some time. Hair grows at roughly half an inch each month, so you should be able to calculate how many years or hmmm .... months it might take to get yours to the requisite length! Your hair should also be cut into long layers to allow movement.

The Colour

Definitely a glossy chestnut brown, copying this style will just be wasted on blonde hair. Darker shades also exude health, so opting for a darker shade may also make your hair look more healthy.

Treatments

You definitely need to give your hair some care and attention for this look, no frizz is allowed! Take time to apply some home treatments to add gloss and moisture to your locks. You may want to opt for a salon treatment but this can cost around £150 for a serious keratin treatment.

Maintenance

Once you have your hair at the optimum Kate length ensure that you go for a trim every two or three months. The benefit of a longer style like this is that you will not need an expensive trim as often as with a shorter style.

The Blow-Dry

Here is the most important part – how to do the “Chelsea Blow-Dry” yourself at home. Be sure to plan ahead though as it can take around 45 minutes.

• Ensure your hair is clean and conditioned. Apply some blow dry oil or serum and smooth through your hair.
• Start blow-drying your hair from the front and using a round brush pointing downwards move the hairdryer and the brush down through your hair at the same speed holding the hairdryer about 5 inches away from your hair.
• Once each section is dry roll it up on a medium sized Velcro roller and pin it to your head.
• Keep the rollers in whilst you get dressed and remove them just before you go out (you will be able to do a great Queen "I want to Break Free” sing-along to yourself whilst you have these in).
• When you take the rollers out turn your head upside down and separate out the curls with your fingers – don’t brush.
• Finish off with a little serum to give shine and define layers and then mist over with hairspray.