Beauty reimagined: Fabled by Marie Claire

fabled-by-marie-claire-review-1Imagine a gorgeous place where your favourite beauty brands come together. That would be enough, right?

Add some beauty experts edits and opinions, from a leading magazine, to make your life easier when choosing the best products for you.

fabled-by-marie-claire-review-2Then, top it off with a real shop full of friendly and approachable professionals in the counters.

Enough? Thought so, but there’s more: online shop with the superb Ocado delivery service, within a chosen 1 hour time slot.

Too good to be true? Maybe, but it’s real. All this is Fabled by Marie Claire.

And you can experience it right now as I have an exclusive 15% discount code for you, lovely readers, to start shopping online right now: VOU039323938, valid until the 26th October 2016. 

To me, the concept is genius: an online shop tons of amazing beauty brands covering makeup, skincare, hair and fragrance, supported by the magazine expert edits, reviews and trend watching.

Beauty lovers that might be short for time, or are not sure about what red lipstick to go for, now have a haven to make their lives easier and help them nail they beauty needs.

And The Fabled Shop in London’s Tottenham Court Road? Dreamy!

fabled-marie-claireI was about to place my order at fabled.com and decided I needed a new foundation. Took the opportunity to try the new Urban Decay All Nighter foundation.

So I went to the shop for a colour match, as I work nearby. Even though I told the lovely makeup artist on the UD counter I was not buying, she was lovely, helpful and super friendly.

I also wanted to get myself a new eyeliner – I went for Estée Lauder Little Black Liner. Obviously both will be reviewed soon!

fabled-by-marie-claire-review-3Now to the order. The site is clean, well categorised, so it is easy to use and find what you’re looking for. You can also look for specific brands, skin concerns, the Marie Claire edit and specific filtering within categories.

They have an online chat to help you in those decisive hours and placing the order is very quick and painless, with Ocado delivery (free over £15, £3.90 otherwise) slots from 5:30 am to 11:3pm.

And you can attach it to your grocery shopping. Now, that’s as exciting as it is dangerous!

Remember, you can get 15% off right now with my code VOU039323938, valid until the 26th October.

fabled-by-marie-claire-review-4At fabled.com and at their fabulous The Fabled Shop at 21 Tottenham Court Road, London, you can find Aveda, Aromatherapy Associates, Balance Me, Bobbi Brown, Benefit, bkr, Burberry, Clinique, Caudalie, Crabtree & Evelyn, Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Essie, Eyeko, Estée Lauder, Eylure, ghd, Giorgio Armani, Gucci,  Hugo Boss, He-Shi, Lancôme, Lipstick Queen, L’Oréal Paris, Marc Jacobs, Maybelline, Nails Inc, NARS, OPI, REN, Rimmel, Seche, St. Tropez, Skin & Tonic, T3, This Works, The Balm, Tom For, Urban Decay, Zelens (breathe) and much more.

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You know the drill, but I’ll say anyway: this post contains PR samples. This review, however, is based on my experience with the product and reflects my honest opinion on them.

Elle accessories report

It took me a while to go through the Elle accessories report, out a few weeks ago. There are so many choices that I decided to concentrate on my favourite types and created  picture gallery with my heel, bag and jewellery picks.

Just as I would with an outfit, I am starting with the high heel shoes: it might come as a shock but I haven’t fallen *madly* in love with any number in particular – none made me want to cash my shoe fund immediately.

Having said that, I could easily see Lara Bohinc’s Tatjana courts in leopard print gracing my footsies – definitely my favourites, these amazing shoes have a somewhat art-deco brass circles sitting on the leopard print calf and at the top of the heel, giving them an amazing texture. I really love the metal details on the shoes upper – Bohinc’s Tatjana collection is definitely worth checking!

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A self confessed heel lover, I am fascinated by their architecture, thickness, material and texture so I was immediately drawn to the heel shape in some selections, special attention to Miu Miu and Prada, with very exquisite heels  (I had to go to Selfridge’s Shoe Galleries to actually touch the Miu Miu’s – they are amazing!). Their shape was almost remitting to historical/costume footwear, with the back of the heel quite prominent and the high heel itself quite chunky and arched outwards, almost like a “C” at the back of the shoe.

Designer until then unknown to me, Chrissie Moriss stood out – amongst my favourites are the Liliana peeptoe shoe boots, the Metropolis and the Dakota – they play beautifully with geometrical shapes on the body and the black Liliana has very sexy heels with a “precious” stone at the end. Fierce!

Other favourites are Giuseppe Zannoti Design’s orange suede sandals, Jimmy Choo’s Kerfield, Flaxley and Kemp, Camilla Skovgaard’s grey peeptoe and grey and silver with zips stilettos, Charlote Olympia’s Cordelia tall boots, Alejandro Ingelmo’s Nighthawk (what a cool name, I am glad the shoes live up to the expectation!) and Pierre Hardy’s leopard print circle cut out sling back sandal.

Style wise,  lots of sparkle, multicolour compositions and loafers seem very strong. Platforms are still present.

Now, the bags –  I noticed that there are many clutches featured, especially box clutches. Amongst my favourite are the Prada python, Miss Dior jacquard, Valentino snakeskin box bag, Jimmy Choo Candy and “Lanvin Evening”.

Satchels and totes also appear quite a bit, as well as fur/pony skin. Other picks are Chloé’s Aurore, Celine Trapeze, Versace Metallic bag (with the iconic Versace Medusa head made in gold metallic mesh, with long-ish straps, lush!) and also from Versace, an embossed number with tassel, very pretty.

Victoria Beckham‘s bags appear a few times, with their clean, sharp cut, straight lines design, and my personal bag obsession, the Mulberry Bayswater, appears as a fox-riveted haircalf incarnation. I did miss Chanel, only one pick for Coco’s brand and that didn’t blow me away.

As far as jewellery go, big, bold cuffs are everywhere, chunky collars and chokers too.  Among my favourites are a Louis Vuitton collar, a BOSS Black red feather brass cuff (gorgeous!),  a Cavalli shell gold cuff and an owl ring, a Vionett gold cuff and a D&G star necklace.

Needless to say, the shoes are my favourite part – and I don’t see them as merely accessories! I enjoyed going through the report, and overall, it does provide me with plenty inspiration when looking at accessories to buy.