Everything A Girl Must Know

I love the pink cover and the swirly writing. Camila Morton gives some tips and advice on how to live your life perfectly; from how to walk in high heels to changing a plug! it's a must have for any woman of any age.<br />It is a modern woman's bible and I do think every woman nowadays needs a little help in doing certain things, this book has them all. I mean, she offers plain and simple explanations in plain english, especially the chapter on changing plugs and how to use a camera. So any woman can do anything she likes. This book is very inspirational and ought to be read when you're feeling a little bit down about yourself, it will pick you back up again.<br />Camilla also gives us some of her wit; I liked the part about going to a car mechanic's to have your car looked at, and that you should wear jeans, t-shirt and trainers and not heels because mechanics will most likely have mentally undressed you if you do! very funny and very true!

Not sure

I quite liked this, but can't work out whether to recommend it to others because while it has a nice feel to it, the advice itself is a bit silly. You've either read it before or it's just not good advice! Would say though that I enjoyed reading it. Like other reviewers - I'm a bit on the fence too!

Excellent book.

This book is the best make up book I have read. Clear descriptions with lots of pictures and easy to read text make this a very accessible book. Every page is full of great illustrations and pictures with some truly stunning examples. I would find it hard to think of any area of the industry not covered within the book. Every area of make up is covered step by step. The case profiles are particular good, with"real" makeup artists at different points in their careers talking about the challenges and successes they have achieved. In summmary, a very clear, comprehensive and down to earth guide to make up and the make up industry that is truly"a complete guide".

Very useful and informative book!

I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who is thinking about enroling on an Indian Head Massage course. It's well laid out and easy to understand. It certainly helped me!!!

love love this book

As you can tell from the title i love this book! :) I was looking online for a makeup book and considering buying a few other ones but i decided to look in the book shop first as i wanted something with really good photos, good makeup looks and great instructions how to do things. Well i looked at every book in the shop and i was initially torn between this and 'beauty editors secrets' (or something like that...think it was by allure) but that seemed like it was just lots of random facts not going into much detail, i was tempted because the photography was really good..anyway this marie claire book is really beautiful (i think) i havent read it all through yet but from first impressions and flicking through pages it looks like its got lots of good tips and great photographs (plus good close ups of eye makeup) and thats what i was looking for so im happy i think you would like it if u want a nice pretty book about makeup.

One book too many

Having found the previous two books by TV's fashion police useful, I was really disappointed with this. It's a typical example of a book too far. It's much longer than the others, but contains far less information, most of it recycled from the past two and presented in a less helpful or interesting way. <br /><br />The book is overlong, padded out with irrelevant glossy photos and giant quotes. There's nothing in the book that couldn't be found in any woman's magazine, which would also be more up to date. If you want fashion advice then you'd be better off to buy the first two books. This one just isn't value for money.

Fantastic, theres no age limit for this book

What a fantastic read. I am a twenty-eight year old who is keen to keep the wrinkles to a minimum so a lot of the plastic surgery did not apply to me(yet!) but it gave great lifestyle advice aswell as cosmetic ideas on how to be a well groomed and youthful looking chick!

Great book!!

This book is truely wonderful and has made me think alot about what you can do for yourself - and keeping the cost down. I am always in a rush in the morning so the makeup tips are great as well as the make your own oils, scrubs etc. Definetly a must have for any age group!!

Worth buying.

I found this book very helpful for seeing past all the hype cosmetics companies generate about their products. Just because a product is expensive doesn't mean its good! In fact, some of the most costly ones are extremely damaging to skin. This book has completely changed the way I take care of my skin, and what I look for in a skin product. My only criticism is that this book was last edited in 2003, which means that new products that have come on the market since then aren't in it. Also, cosmetics companies sometimes change the ingredients in their products, which means that some of the reviews may no longer be valid. Nonetheless, a very helpful book.

My head hurts !!

Wow - what a book !! This book takes a bit of getting your head round but now that I have I cant wait to get started. My friends are all very keen to be my ginuea pigs.

highly modified rapture

Setting aside the illustrations, this book is regrettably a better source for 1950's notions about what kinds of underwear are sexy, than for information about the relations between underwear and costume as a whole. The authors' ideas of gender, sexual behaviour and clothing are highly dated, often unintentionally amusing and occasionally outright insulting. I was extremely disappointed in what I had hoped would be a serious study.

Nevertheless, the collection of illustrations is useful, and serves to garner this text its second star.

Slightly disappointed

I read the whole book in one evening, so I was disappointed that there was so little content in the book. I didn't really learn anything from the book itself either, most of the tips I already knew and had picked up from magazines etc over the years. I love Bobbi Brown cosmetics and brushes though, and expected to really find something in the book that would excite me, but I'm afraid it didn't.

Refreshing and beautiful book

I was very upset to hear that the author of this book, Kevyn Aucoin, had died. He was a makeup genius and is such a loss for the makeup world. His images where so enchanting. I loved the variety of photographs such as the unique but totally different portraits of Karen Elson as Elizabeth I with startling white skin and Mary J. Blige's Skin covered in beautiful eggplant black foundation.

This book is essential to any makeup fanatic like me. And everyone just has to fall in love with the show stopping picture of a famous actress made up as James Dean.

Your closet is calling you! What to wear, how to shop

This book shows you how to take one piece and use it four ways, whether skirt, jacket or pants, and then how to accessorize. There is a section on undergarments, too. In front of the book, you'll find a bookmark with a list of essentials to buy, so take this with you when you shop. In the back of the book is a workbook for lists of things your friends like, how to choose what to keep in your closet and other helpful hints. <br /><br />For shoppers, the handy workbook and bookmark make organizing a wardrobe easy. If you, like me, find you wear only a few pieces mix-and-match, this will help you visualize a working wardrobe. I prefer a few good pieces to a closet full of many that I don't wear often, so this kind of help can be quite useful to set up a wardrobe and weed out the pieces that need to go to the rummage sale or charity shop.<br /><br />The fashions are for the 20-35 set, over 35, you'll find this is less useful as a fashion guide unless you ignore the photos. But the photos are the nicest thing about the book; white background, unfussy shots of clothes make it easy to visualize how the style works. Recommended with the reservations mentioned.

A classic which needs updating

This book was written some time in the sixties but must have been updated of sorts ever since because some entries vaguely refer to late lady Diana and the use of cellphones. I only regret that the updating process was not taken any further, for the book is badly dated. The first thought that pops to mind is Thank Goodness the dress etiquette has thoroughly simplified these days. Dariaux is not partial to trousers, which women nowadays could simply not do without and recommends different dresses for different moments of the day, an encumbering task for the working woman, to say the least. Let’s say that Dariaux’s is a good reference book, as could be expected from a French woman who has worked as fashion consultant for Nina Ricci, but it’s the sort of advice a kind Grandma would give her granddaughter. I dare say it could be an invaluable guide for the woman who has absolutely no inkling on style whatsoever, for it provides good pointers on colour coordination, adaptability of one’s wardrobe to different social situations and basics for impeccable grooming, but the stylish woman already knows most of the things she talks about. Though also dated, I find Susan Sommers’"French chic" is the definitive guide to French elegance and far easier to translate to our times

Great Book

Great read. Very useful info and in depth. Includes pretty much all the internet research I've done on hair growth and a lot more besides. The totally natural and obvious way to go, not just for hair growth but overall well being and health in general. Great CD to relax to as well.

Mike

Velveteen reality

I found this book almost by mistake, and when it arrived I began reading immediately. It is one of the first books in a long time that I was compelled to read in one sitting. Author Toni Raiten-D'Antonio's writing is clear, compassionate, accessible and stimulating. It didn't hurt that the text was crafted around the children's story, 'The Velveteen Rabbit', one of the stories from my childhood that I loved dearly. I recall both the book and the film, and being moved to tears each time, both with the rabbit's becoming real, and the realisation that this reality came with a heavy cost.

'The Velveteen Rabbit' is a short children's story written in 1922 by Margery Williams. Simple in plot and idea, it nonetheless contains wisdom beyond its seeming simplicity. The issues brought up are those that concern children and adults in many ways, and Toni Raiten-D'Antonio taps into the key issue - living a life that is real, not fake or phony. Some authors in the area of vocational discernment and personal fulfillment talk about living an authentic life; this is another term for what is here meant to as being real.

What does being real mean? For the Velveteen Rabbit, being real was a goal to strive for, not in a material sense (the rabbit did exist), but in a spiritual and emotional sense. The rabbit was one of many toys in the boy's room, many of which were flashier, more complex, brighter, shinier, or just 'more' in some way than the seemingly cheaply constructed Velveteen Rabbit. Yet the wise old horse, the Skin Horse, loved so much that his fur had rubbed off, inspired the rabbit by his acceptance, sense of self, and grace he extended, even sometimes to other toys that did not seem to deserve it.

One of the key concepts in the story that Raiten-D'Antonio highlights is that 'real' isn't a product, but rather a process. 'It doesn't happen all at once,' the Skin Horse tells the rabbit. It is a process that can be slow, it can be painful, and it can lead where one doesn't expect. But the first concept is that being real is possible - Raiten-D'Antonio states that from the moment the rabbit realised that `real' was a possibility, the rabbit was on the road to becoming real.

For us as human beings, becoming real is not something we're likely to find in a self-help video or encounter workshop, going in as one thing and coming out as another. There is no `eight-minute abs' variant for becoming real. Nor is being real always pretty. Again, according to the Skin Horse, 'It doesn't happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.' However, these are things that matter only to those who don't understand (which, unfortunately, is much of our society). Raiten-D'Antonio coins the term 'United States of Generica' (U.S. of G., for short) for the kind of plastic, flashy society that runs on media-hyped images of what good and desirable should be.

Raiten-D'Antonio is a therapist, having left the more glitzy world of television behind - once a mover on the corporate ladder (even if the intention was to produce PBS/educational 'worthwhile' television), she found herself in a place personally and vocationally that was inauthentic, and worried that by the time she would be permitted to do what she wanted to do, she might not be herself any longer. The culture in which we live has misplaced values (she highlights the fact that we pay more attention to models than to Nobel Prize winners; even the term 'model' has implications beyond what in fact they are), and it is a struggle, a process, to become real - real to oneself and real to what is truly important in life.

One of the tasks toward becoming real, according to Raiten-D'Antonio, is to learn empathy, and in particular self-empathy. The Skin Horse had great powers of empathy. The rabbit grew in this during the course of the story. Empathy and self-empathy an important principle, as are all twelve principles gleaned from the story. Being real is meaningful, as Raiten-D'Antonio describes in her epilogue, and leaves a legacy more lasting and real than stocks, bonds, real estate, etc. 'If you become more Real in your own life and bring that to your relationships, you are practically guaranteed to leave behind an inspiring example for others.'

The transformation of the rabbit from toy to real is dramatic and poignant, and has lessons that can help transform our lives, too. This is a remarkable book, one that will stay with me for a long time to come, long after the whiskers have faded, the tail has become unsewn, and the fur has been loved off.