The Interview

Interview with Liz Houghton OBE, one of the founders of Mint Velvet

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Some of the best ideas are thought up around a kitchen table with a good old cup of tea, and that’s exactly how trio Liz Houghton, Jane Rawlings, and Lisa Agar Rea, created Mint Velvet.  They all had similar backgrounds in fashion, and have managed to develop Mint Velvet into a well loved British brand with a strong and growing clientele both here in the UK and abroad, all within a mere nine years.  With 46 boutiques across the UK and Ireland, a store in Dubai Festival City Mall, and international concessions within De Bijenkorf and Manor, as well as John Lewis, House of Fraser, and an OBE to boot, it is no coincidence that Mint Velvet is the brand of the moment.  All that from a kitchen table and cup of tea!

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Lifestyle, Parenthood & Kids

Caroline’s Christmas CountDown For Kids

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Those Christmas adverts and Christmas shop windows are here, and are here to stay for the next six weeks, whether you like it or not.  With each passing year, it seems that Christmas is coming round faster each time….. It only feels like yesterday that we wrote last year’s Christmas gift guide here at NotSuchAModelMum.  Perhaps time really does fly when you get old like me!!!  To help ease that sometimes hair raising rollercoaster that can be the Christmas silly season, I have compiled a few favourite items of ours which will  come in useful when trying to think what the hell to buy people!  First up is my gift guide for kids.

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Beauty

Clean Hair, Don’t Care

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I don’t know about you, but my hair always looks better two or three days after I have washed it.  Post wash, my hair is flyaway, frizzy, unmanageable and resembles an electrocuted birdsnest!  So, when I get a modelling job and the request is: “Come with clean hair please.”  I tend to feel sorry for the hair stylist!  Alongside the call time and the shoot location, having clean hair is the top request when we go to a modelling job.  You would think this would be an obvious thing to have, alongside shaved legs and tidy eyebrows, but the irony of this is not lost on us, because freshly washed hair is too clean to hold the style you want.  So, how do hair stylists on shoots get that sought after slightly dirty hair look when a model turns up with squeaky clean, flyaway, frizzy hair? ( or is that just me?!)

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Fashion

It’s A Cover-up!

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Now that Summer is well and truly over, and, despite the fact that I live in balmy Barcelona, we have just returned from Thailand and got a tropical blast of Summer sun.  Yes, it’s an extravagance, but, given that my family and I love to chase the sunshine, and, given that we had a wedding in Bangkok to go to, we made the most of this opportunity and headed to the Far East to enjoy some sticky rice and mango!  Having had my third baby seven months ago, summer fashion at the moment is all about a great cover up and supportive swimwear for me, and here is my edit of my favourite pieces.  So, even if you have nowhere warm to go to before next summer, this is a great chance to update next year’s summer wardrobe… and some of the pieces are even on sale!

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Fashion

Our Winter Coat Edit

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After the UK’s epic summer, it has been pretty exciting to slowly dig out those snuggly jumpers and demoth our winter coats that have been hiding in the loft.  Each year both of us buy at least one new winter coat, and, because this season, it seems like anything goes, we are casting our shopping net wide and checking out all the trends.  There is so much to choose from, so here’s a selection of our favourites, along with a couple of cheeky discount codes, ’cause every mama loves a discount!

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Beauty

Unicorn Dust

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When the sweat started to drip down my back whilst on the Tube in London, I knew that the heat had finally become too much.  All that talk of summer glow had gone down the pan, and the closest thing I got to that summer glow was when I opened the freezer door and glowed with joy.  Nonetheless, despite that back trickle, once the normal dull drizzle returned and the weather resumed normality, we both knew that we would miss that special shimmer that only the sunshine can give us.  Of course, you can buy it in a bottle, but one glance at the good quality shimmering body oil market, and you are talking about spending over £50.  That is not up our street here at NotSuchAModelMum, so we are going to copy some make up artists and use their neat little trick to achieve that summer shimmer at a fraction of the price.

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Home & Away, Parenthood & Kids

Silver Crossed Lovers

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After having my third baby four months ago, I am slowly but surely navigating my way out of that perpetual haze of newborn sleep deprivation.  With two full nights of sleep in the bag(!), I am feeling a little more human once again and, third time round as I get to know my little bundle of joy, I have really noticed that each child is so different.

But it is not only my kids who are so different… I have also changed with each pregnancy.  And to top it all off – so has my environment!  Having gone from living in central London with two kids (walking everywhere and using public transport) – to living in Barcelona by the sea with three kids (where I rely almost entirely on my car)…Everything seems to have changed.  Struggling through this whirlwind of change – one element has kept me sane in my ever-transient lifestyle: my incredibly versatile pram.

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Fashion

Jump For Joy

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For the first time ever, Royal Ascot’s prohibitive dress code allowed race goers to wear jumpsuits.  For a traditional event to allow this style of clothing shows how far the humble jumpsuit has come in its fashion trajectory.  We didn’t go to Ascot this year, but that won’t stop us planning our Ascot outfit for next year… and it will clearly involve us wearing a jumpsuit.  We have raced to the shops ( pardon the pun) and hunted down our favourite jumpsuits to wear come 2019 …if anyone invites us, that is!!

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Beauty

A Make Up Cushion

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With three kids constantly using my handbag as some kind of bin, I am aways finding half eaten lollipops, broken toys and other such useless paraphernalia stuffed inside my Balenciaga.  The one thing my two eldest boys know not to touch is my tiny make up bag, or “facial repair kit” as my eldest calls it.  My youngest doesn’t adhere to that rule …there has been many a time where my mascara has been used to paint the cat or the walls, but that’s a blog post for another time!  Thanks to my third child, there’s not much in that sad little sac, but a good cover up is always in said sac.  This time, my cover up comes in the form of a cushion compact (yes i know i sound like a granny, but hear me out) and it has revolutionised my little ” facial repair kit.”

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Fashion, Home & Away

Missoni Mayhem

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If you hadn’t already noticed, we love Missoni.  And it turns out that we are not alone in our obsession for this brand – which is jam-packed full of eclectic colours and crazy prints.  They have a unique ability to put together colour combinations and prints that, on paper, should be ghastly, but in reality are effortlessly stunning.  And it is this that sets Missoni apart from other brands.  It is therefore no surprise that our Missoni obsession has now spilled over from our wardrobes into areas of our homes as well.

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