Yes, Style

DSCF1355_2DSCF1360_2DSCF1354_2DSCF1362_2Blouse: YesStyle

Skirt: Asos

Belt: Glassons

Shoes: Chie Mihara

I had such success with my experience of purchasing from YesWalker, that I decided a few months ago to try my luck with the mothership store YesStyle and see if they’re prices and “plus size” products really WERE too good to be true.

I’d had my eye on this lace collar polkadot blouse for some time, and had quite fancied the idea of buying a second pair of heart-toe ballet flats this time in black. Coupled with the fact that YesStyle were one of the only sources for me to buy the BB cream that I fell in love with while I was in Japan late last year and I decided to take the plunge.

My second experience dealing with the “YesAsia” brand was much the same as the first – I placed the order on the 15th of March, it shipped on the 26th, and I had it a few weeks after that.

The BB cream was The Real Deal, the shoes turned out not to be the same brand that I’d had success with previously (and frustratingly fitted about three sizes smaller) but the blouse was well worth the $25 pricetag.

It’s made of a synthetic polyester, with no stretch, and the description of the size range as “plus size” is laughable. I bought the largest size, 47; and while it fits me well enough it’s the largest size available and it seems unlikely that it would fit the 42.9″ waist measurement the size chart suggests.

The collar’s made of a lovely antique-style cotton, double layered, and it sits flat and wide with a scalloped edge that doesn’t roll at all.

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The sleeve cuffs are elasticised with a slight ruffle that you don’t see because they’re at exactly the right length to get lost in the crease of my elbow. They’re quite loose and flowy, and the elastic doesn’t cut in at all.

Overall, my experience didn’t fill me with a great deal of confidence about YesStyle. It seems like the sizing is inconsistent to the point of being comical, and you need to have some familiarity with each of the brands to understand what exactly it is that you’re ordering. I fluked this top, and it cost less than the shoes which are completely unwearable. A 50% strike rate isn’t great.

That said, they have some of the cutest pieces I’ve seen on the internet. Lots of peter pan collars, colour blocking, printed fabrics, and preppy, almost cutesy styles.

The prices are great, the fashion is original and quite innovative, and next time I need to restock my BB Cream, I’ll probably take the opportunity to do another browse through their “plus size” section. BUT, it does feel like a bit of a lottery so I doubt they’ll become somewhere that I regularly frequent. (she says, before clicking through to the website & then spotting this!).

On to the Mother’s Day competition: Congratulations to Bella who’s won the opportunity to treat her Mum to an afternoon High Tea this Sunday the 12th of May.

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Thank you to everyone who entered – I loved hearing your stories about your Mums and what you remember best in the wardrobes!

Bella, I’ll be in touch about how to claim your prize, and I hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

About a Curl

DSCF1168_2 DSCF1171Top: Luxx

Skirt: Asos

Shoes: Chie Mihara

You know how people always want what they don’t have? Pale skinned girls want tans, short girls wish they were tall, busty girls wish they had b-cups. I want curls.

I’ve always had a thing for curly hair. I don’t know if it was instilled in me from watching my Mum emerge from the bathroom on special occasions smelling of Guy De Laroche’s Fidji perfume and hair still warm from the hot curlers that she used; but I just think soft curls epitomise beauty and glamour.

My mum had super soft, golden blonde hair, and it always seemed to hold a curl remarkably well.

Mine, not so much.

Don’t get me wrong, I like my hair. It’s strong and shiny, and pretty luxurious even if there’s an increasing number of what my hairdresser charitably refers to as “sparklies” (AKA, grey hairs) in it. I’ve learnt how to manage it without needing torturous hours with hairdryers and teasing combs. But it doesn’t hold a curl to save itself.

For my 30th birthday I “gifted” myself a perm. Worst. Decision. Ever. My hair overnight became brittle and lacklustre. I didn’t have the waves and barrel curls I’d imagined, I just seemed to have frizz that felt crunchy and fell out in handfuls. To add insult to injury the second the perm started growing out great chunks of my hair would regularly snap off where the healthy met the chemically destroyed.

Never again.

It didn’t do much to diminish my love of curly hair, but it turned me off trying to do it to myself.

Enter the ghd.

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Friends more adept than I with salon equipment would speak about the ghd in hushed tones, but as far as I was concerned it was just another straightener and, a) why would you want to straighten your naturally curly hair, for God’s sake? and b) no device I’d ever used had any kind of lasting effect on my stubborn locks anyway.

Newsflash: Apparently you can use a straightener to curl your hair.

When ghd offered to send me a straightener for review, I wasn’t quite sure whether or not I should say yes. On the one hand, I’m not at all familiar with using a straightener, and I wasn’t sure whether or not it would be a waste of their resources to give me a device that I wasn’t capable of using, which would probably have little to no effect anyway. On the other hand…. I was kind of curious to know what the hype was about.

Curiosity won out, and a few days later this beautifully packaged piece of machinery arrived on my doorstep.

Let me preface this by saying: an amazing product in the hands of a complete amateur is not going to result automatically in perfect style. You just have to check out my first attempt at curls on my Facebook page to see what a dog’s breakfast I made of styling my hair. But the good thing about the internet is that there’s lots of very helpful videos that show you how to do things… and if you have an amazing friend who knows how to drive one of these things, then so much the better.

My first impression of the ghd is that it’s a beautifully designed item, aesthetically and mechanically. It’s comfortable in the hand, not too heavy, cool to touch, and heats up astoundingly quickly. Even as a complete newbie I didn’t manage to burn myself once. And my second (post-tutorial) attempt looked like this:

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CURLS! THE CURLS OF MY DREAMS!

I used no product, no hairspray, nothing but the ghd, then I took myself out for an evening on the town, staggered home at about 11PM, put myself to bed and guess what?

The next day I still had curls.

I got up, had some breakfast, wandered around the shops went home, cooked dinner and put myself to bed again. And the next morning?

Curls. A little less buoyant than before, but indisputably curls.

The ghd is officially a miracle device, and well-deserved of its reputation as the very best hair straightener (curler) on the market, and I’m looking forward to developing my repertoire of hairstyles (the ghd website’s got a few on-trend tutorials that provide a good starting point for experimentation)

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