HELIOCARE

A quick beauty post, quite relevant to beach holidays. Have you ever heard of a sun cream brand Heliocare? I hadn't until a Dermatologist recommended it to me and now I want to recommend it to you guys as it's brilliant. I started wearing an SPF under my daily moisturiser about five years ago. I guess 30 is the age when you start noticing the first signs of ageing and realising that your skin is not invincible after all! What a shock! :-) In those five years I've tried many different sun creams that are meant for face and neck. Most of them are way too heavy and leave your face looking ghost white. Some are too greasy. Heliocare smells lovely, is light and non-greasy, doesn't leave a white layer on your face and at least for my skin is enough on its own to moisturise as well. I use it every single day of the year whether it's winter or summer or whether I'm in Finland or Barbados. If only I had started wearing an SPF every day when I was 20! If you're in your twenties and reading this start now and you'll thank me when you're older ;-) The Heliocare cream I use is the SPF 50 gel. Even though it's called a gel the consistency is more like a light cream. In London I buy Heliocare at a pharmacy on Wigmore Street but you can order it from Amazon too.

Minna x

POSTCARD FROM BARBADOS

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend! This is where I am right now. Sorry for not getting back to all the latest comments I will do that on my return in a couple of days. More Barbados pictures to follow shortly too. 

Minna x

WHAT I WORE: LAST YEAR'S FAVORITES

This coat was one of my favourite items in my wardrobe last year and I can't see that changing this year either. It's still a bit too warm to wear it really but I just couldn't resist... 

Coat: Sandro / T-Shirt: Splendid / Jeans: J Brand / Shoes: Manolo Blahnik / Clutch: Celine

Minna x

AT THE FINNISH AMBASSADOR'S HUMBLE HOUSE

Last night I spent a fun evening at the Ambassador of Finland's beautiful residence, which to be honest, wasn't really that humble... The event was the launch of Nokian by Julia Lundsten collection. 

There were boots everywhere. Different colors, shapes and styles. I had no idea that the collection was so vast.

That is Julia herself on the left next to the Ambassador's lovely wife, Liisa. They are both wearing boots from the collection. If only you could see them better in the picture...

I absolutely love the photography in the campaign. 

(Talking about photography I have to apologise for the picture quality... I don't like posting grainy, yellow pictures but I wasn't prepared to carry my flash around with me. Hence I decided that some of the pictures were better off as black & white.)

We were served some excellent Finnish goodies such as these tiny round pieces of rye bread with herring and quail's egg.

The dress code was "lounge suit"... Not a dress code I was familiar with so I had to do some googling just to make sure I wasn't going to show up in a casual outfit when everyone else was wearing a ball gown! I found a lot of different descriptions, all of them pretty vague. Like this one:

"Lounge suits are normal business suits, worn for semi-formal occasions with a shirt and tie. The equivalent for women is a skirt or trouser suit, cocktail dress or evening gown depending on the time of day and the occasion."

Hmmm... That doesn't rule out much for us women so I decided to take my chances and show up smart casual.

The Ambassador's house was beautiful inside and out. I'm glad I had the opportunity to visit it. 

And here goes my clean eating! I blame Nokian by Julia Lundsten and their goodie bag! I obviously started demolishing the bar already in a taxi on my way home, carried on whilst making my way up to our flat and without as much as taking my shoes off sat myself down in the kitchen to finish off the rest of it. In one go. I think it took me about 20 minutes in total. Oops. But I have to say it was worth every calorie, there's nothing better than Finnish chocolate. Happy Thursday everyone!


Minna x

WHAT I WORE: DOTS IN THE OFFICE

Blouse: Zara / Trousers: Joseph / Shoes: Christian Louboutin / Bag: Celine

Minna x

FINSK

Sometimes being a blogger can lead you to experience fun things and meet interesting new people. This happened to me recently when I had the pleasure of meeting my fellow Finn Julia Lundsten, a shoe designer behind the brand Finsk. We met in their office, located on a pretty central London square. It had boxes and boxes of shoes stacked up high on each wall. Their LFW preparations seemed to be in full speed and they are also busy with their Nokia collaboration. And yes, even though most of the world knows Nokia for their mobile phones they’re actually also a wellington boot manufacturer. If in England every country house has at least one pair of Hunters in their foyer in Finland the same goes for Nokia wellies! The boots that Julia has designed for Nokia are wellies that don’t look like wellies. They’re the sort of footwear you’d choose to wear on a stylish country weekend, when taking your kids to the park on a wet day or, quite often, just on an ordinary day in London!!

I’m a fan of these pretty and feminine wellies, which are incredibly comfortable to wear.

These are also wellies. The color doesn’t show in the picture very well but it’s a beautiful, deep purple. They come with the orange laces, which looks cool indeed but to tone things down a notch you could just wear them with black ones. Julia was wearing these in black with black laces and I would have never guessed they were wellies!

Finsk’s trademark style is quite different from these every day type of boots. They are best known for their quirky (extremely quirky I may add...) shoes and boots that to me look like pieces of art or something that you could enter a design competition with! :-)

One a little bit tamer pair in that collection did catch my eye though. These boots are just gorgeous! Very me.

Their collection Skin by Finsk however is less quirky and very much wearable. They had a lot of cute booties. This collection is also easier on the wallet.

These pony hair boots were my favourites!

The girls in the office were hard at work.

Right, then onto trying some of Finsk's shoes on! (By the way this was after our "quick" coffee, which ended up lasting for two hours... oops.) First these beauties. Yes, still love them!
 

These wellies were sooo comfy and also very light in comparison to traditional wellies.

And here we go... Do you think these look good on me? I had a good laugh imagining going home wearing them: "honey look what I bought today"! Incredibly though despite my expectations they were just as comfortable as the above wellies. I could have walked in them all day long.

It was lovely to meet Julia and her team and even better our 3-year olds are now playdate friends!

You can find Finsk's website in here and check out their Nokia collaboration collection in here.


Minna x

WHAT I WORE: MY NEW BOOTIES

I don't intend to be shopping much this season (I do want to don't get me wrong but I just can't justify it, I have enough clothes) but these Tory Burch Milan booties in suede were something that I just had to have... One can never have too many black boots and especially comfortable, every day ones. In the couple of weeks that I've owned them I've already worn them more than any other item in my wardrobe. They're great in the evenings too with a dress and thick black tights. 

Knit: GAP / T-Shirt: Splendid / Waxed Jeans: J Brand / Booties: Tory Burch / Bag: Chanel / Sunglasses: Gucci 

Minna x

ANTIBES, MICHAELANGELO

The summer just gone was my sixth one spent in the lovely South of France. The one restaurant I've been going to since the first summer and the one I've been to by far the most is an Italian restaurant Michaelangelo. Michaelangelo is located on a little back alley in Antibes old town. It's unlikely that you'd just happen to wander past it so you must know about it and a lot of people do... It's always busy. The restaurant is cosy with its stone walls and dim lighting. (By the way I LOVE dim lighting, it immediately puts me off if I walk into a restaurant that has its lighting too bright.) Michaelangelo also has a big outdoor terrace. I normally prefer the inside for the atmosphere but the outside if I'm having an early dinner with the kids. It's a family run restaurant and the owners are always present, greeting their customers. The smiley guy in the picture is Michael, the owner's son. A very nice young man indeed!

This is their melanzane alla parmigiana, one of my favourite starters there. The other winner is farciti farci (vegetables stuffed with veal.)



My favourite main dishes at Michaelangelo are risotto with scallops and prawns, baby chicken and tournedos rossini ie. beef with foie gras (in the above picture). I wouldn't recommend the latter unless you're hungry... it's seriously filling. My stomach always has space for it though, it's too yummy to say no to! Their desserts are also heavenly, to mention a couple the meringue cake and the triple chocolate mousse...

You can't leave Michaelangelo without checking out the their impressive collection of pictures of the owners posing with celebrities who have dined there. They have Jay-Z, Beyonce, Rihanna, Robert De Niro, Harrison Ford and tens of others hanging on their walls. The last celebrities I spotted there were Emma Stone with her spiderman! Lucky them got seated next to us and got to experience my Australian friend being (apparently...) very Australian (and maybe a tiny bit tipsy) and asking for a picture. Not embarrassing at all! :-) She didn't get one... (Sorry K, I think they should have said yes too!) 

Michaelangelo's website can be found here.


Minna x

IBIZA, SANDS

I thought I'd share a few more Ibiza pictures with you and another tip for a great beach spot. This one is called Sands and it's located on Playa d'en Bossa beach. Playa d'en Bossa is a stunning, long beach. In fact I hear that it's the longest beach in Ibiza. Sands is a chilled out beach club with comfy cabanas and sun beds spread out on the beach. They also serve delicious food so it's the perfect place for a relaxing day. This is what my recent day there looked like.

What an amazing nail polish colour! Shellac, apparently.



A super yummy goat's cheese dish.



And the mirrored shades obsession continues...



The view from Sands is stunning!



In the evenings it livens up and they have some great DJ's playing throughout the summer. Well summer is nearly over but there's always the next one!

And another quick Ibiza tip; the man in the above picture is one of the owners of a new restaurant called Sacca, which is also a must if in Ibiza. A very romantic al fresco setting and amazing Asian food.

But now back to... I was going to say grey London but in fact it's not that grey today! Or at least it's not raining, which is a plus. I hope you all have a great one! I'm off to spend some quality family time.


Minna x