foundation Archives - Mummy's Little StarsMummy's Little Stars

Joan Collins Timeless Beauty is a new international luxury beauty brand consisting of skin care and beauty products and I’ve been lucky to try some of the glamorous base products recommended by Dame Joan Collins herself. With her own personal industry experience she has been able to collaborate on products that give sought after looks normally provided by top make up artists.

With anti ageing properties the products are just what I’m looking for as being in my early 40’s I’m definitely seeing the signs of ageing and fine lines creeping in! The Joan Collins range consists of both skin care and make up and all come styled in glamourous glass and gold packaging, the sort you’d expect to find on the dressing table of a Hollywood starlet. With the high-end bottles it was time to check out the contents and put the make up to the test. Having fair skin I went for the ‘Warm Extra Fair’ foundation and ‘Fair’ concealer. A sample of the Sleep Active Night Cream was also included for me to put to the test.

The Joan Collins Fade to Perfect concealer (£18) comes generously sized with an easy to use wand to apply to the eye area, around the nose and anywhere else you need a bit of cover. It blends easily and helps reduce dark circles and puffiness. As you can see I have a dark area under each eye and I found that this covered it perfectly leaving my under eye area flawless and perfectly blended.

The Joan Collins First Base foundation (£25) comes in an easy to pump bottle which I always like as you can dispense straight onto your brush, blender or fingers. This smoothed easily over my skin giving a good medium coverage, enough for me and gives my skin a good even tone. Hyaluronic acid is a great plumping ingredient and is used in this to help fill in fine lines and wrinkles, definitely a plus for me as I hate the lines on my forehead and between my brows. The foundation has a soft velvety texture which helps to blur imperfections but leaves you with a radiant look.

At the end of the day I always remove my make up and carefully wash my face to help protect my skin. It’s then important to apply a moisturiser that can work at night to repair and revive the skin and Joan Collins has come up with a great solution for the over 30’s. At 42 this is very welcome and I couldn’t wait to give it a try. Sleep Active Night Cream (£40) works to energise cellular activity and revive the skin, helping lift and reduce the signs of fatigue and advancing age so the face looks fresher, brighter, more alive and younger. With 28 active ingredients including 7 anti-oxidants, 10 anti-ageing, 11 moisturisers, albizia, julibrissen (persian silk tree bark) extract, ectoin, avocado butter, jojoba oil I have to say this felt like heaven on my skin at the end of the day. Light, refreshing, reviving, moisturising it just felt bliss and certainly was a great help to soothe and renew my skin overnight.

Overall I’m thoroughly impressed with the Joan Collins Timeless Beauty brand and would definitely recommend giving it a try particularly if you are 30+. It looks glamourous, feels glamourous but is mid priced so accessible to many especially as it can be picked up at your local M&S store as well as being sold at various places online!

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the product in order to write an honest review.

Mr Thorne Does Phonics is one of a series of apps by Mr Thorne a primary school teacher who has produced numerous YouTube videos on the teaching of phonics, spellings and also various maths topics.

We downloaded Mr Thorne Does Phonics to the iPad to see what it was like. The app contains all the Youtube videos relating to phonics sounds in one easy place, so you can just tap the sound you want to practice and the video plays.

When I first showed 3 yr old Mister B the app, he was a little disappointed as he was expecting an app that he could be more interactive with by pressing the screen rather than just watching it. It took some encouragement from big sister Miss M who sat watching them herself and repeated the sounds and words that Mr Thorne says. Mister B being one who always copies his sister started saying the sounds too and got really into it, soon watching Mr Thorne himself and repeated the sounds that he heard.

This is really good to get little ones practising phonics sounds and basic words. All sounds and words are displayed clearly on the screen alongside a real life Mr Thorne who is pronouncing them. Mister B is really starting to grasp his letter phonics and this is great for him to sit down with to listen and repeat. When he’s in the right frame of mind he quite happily sits there copying the sounds – it’s so lovely to hear and you can really hear the enthusiasm in his voice.

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For 6yr old Miss M who is becoming an increasingly confident reader, the one thing she struggles with is spellings. Sometimes I’m amazed at how well she reads but then writes a story with quite poor spelling, she literally writes how she sounds it out.

Mr Thorne’s Spellbook is a series of spelling tests, each of which consist of 10 spellings. Miss M has sat quite happily trying these out and worked out that if she gets all ten right then she gets some items to display in the museum. This helped motivate her into trying hard as she could see lots of empty museum shelves that needed filling and wanted to try and gain the rewards.

mr thorne 3 I love this app for Miss M as it really does challenge her, we have a lot of apps on the iPad that are below her age, and although she loves to play, they don’t challenge her in anyway. This is brilliant for spelling practice and is one area I really feel she lacks in. The first level on this is perfect for her ability, she can easily get 7 or 8 correct but needs to repeat the other few. There are two further levels concentrating on harder words that she has yet to reach.

Mr Thorne’s apps are simple, to the point and do the job they should – they teach children. There are no gimmicks, the children learn straight away but in a fun way. Obviously you need to have the child in the right mood to respond and react to the app but I can definitely say that these apps have been of benefit to my two, they’ve enjoyed them and continue to use them to this day.

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the app in order to write the review.