Strip Hot Wax Salon at Bristol Harvey Nichols

Earlier this week, I was invited to Bristol’s newest waxing salon – Strip in Harvey Nichols.  Strip opened its concession on the ground floor of Harvey Nicks on 22 August and is the first of Strip’s boutique salons to open outside of London.  I went along to meet Strip’s founders, Danielle and Maria-Louise Featherstone and to test out the salon for myself.

Strip's products for sale

Danielle and Maria-Louise talked to me about their existing salons in London, their new venture in Bristol and the products they use.  As well as providing a specialist waxing bar, they also provide a spray tan service.  A range of the products are also stocked in the Salon to buy – these include South Seas tanning (which looks really lovely and is paraben free) and Lycon waxing and bodycare products.  As well as the beauty products, they sell a range of high-end undies including Hanky Panky and Mary Green.

Danielle and Maria-Louise are clearly really passionate about the work they do – providing a really specialist waxing service using top-quality hot wax rather than the traditional strip wax that the majority of UK salons use.  And they have an impressive roster of high-profile clients who are happy to put their testament to their skill – including none other than Victoria Beckham and Sienna Miller – high praise indeed.

Shop floor at Strip

I was shown around the salon’s two treatment rooms and they are really quite impressive and very different to the usual salon decor – The Olive Room is decked out in green, whereas the Chocolate Room (which is sure to be a hit with the punters) has massive artwork of a chocolate bar!  Both rooms have flat screen TVs showing films to distract you from your waxing – none of the naff, plinky-plonky music that most salons pipe out. 

Strip's Olive Room

My treatment was performed by Carleigh, who really knew what she was doing.  She immediately put me at ease and there was no embarrassment despite the fact that I was having an extended bikini wax (no, I wasn’t brave enough for a Hollywood!)  The therapists are clearly used to carrying out intimate waxing day-in, day-out so are skilled at putting you at ease and knowing how to do the job quickly and efficiently.  Carleigh took me into the Chocolate Room and used the Chocolate Wax - this smelt heavenly – like Nutella!  The wax itself was warm, but not too hot, and using a thick layer of wax, Carleigh removed my hair in an efficient and relatively painless way.  Because oil is applied to the skin prior to the wax, the wax grabs only the hair and not the skin.  There was a small amount of pain, but certainly nothing like a normal bikini wax.  Also, there was no residue left on my skin, like traditional waxing leaves behind.

Almost edible - The Chocolate Room

I was really pleased with the results of my wax.  Carleigh really made sure that it was clean and to the desired shape – no stragglers were left behind.  I’ve had a few “wonky” bikini waxes in my time, but she clearly knew what she was doing, and I’m pleased to say I’m very symmetrical!

I can clearly see the benefits of going to a dedicated waxing salon, especially one using hot wax.  Particularly, if you have never had your intimate regions waxed before, I would definitely go to Strip, as they are really professional and expert in their approach, whilst being discrete.  I was very impressed and I will be heading back there for more waxing.

Strip offers a “menu” of specialist waxing options, as well as Vajazzles.  I’m not sure if Bristol has anywhere else that offers this service – do let me know, as I’d be interested to find out!  They also offer a full range of treatments for men.

Clearly for a premium waxing service, you do pay a premium price – I took a price list away with me and the prices are more expensive than the salon I usually go to, which I already think is expensive!  However, they do allow you to buy in bulk to lessen the impact on your wallet – I quite like the idea of buying a year’s worth of waxing in one go so you don’t need to worry about it again.  However, in my opinion, the quality of the salon is worth the money.  I once spent two hours getting my legs waxed and I wasn’t 100% impressed with the result – for a quick, less painful wax with an excellent finish at Strip, I would happily fork out the extra money.

Watching a film whilst getting smooth

I think that Strip is a really good addition to Bristol’s beauty offer, and I’m pleased to see that we are attracting companies like Strip to our fair city!  I’d be interested to hear of anyone else’s waxing experiences – let me know if you have any stories!

Thanks for reading! xx

PS - I'm really sorry about my crappy photos - I had to borrow a camera from work and it did not like the lighting in Harvey Nichols at all!

Catch up and Ramble

Happy Saturday ladies - hope you're all enjoying this (rainy) Saturday!  I've been a bit slack on the blogging front over the past week, something I hope to remedy over the next week or so.  The reason is, since I've been on a Beauty Diet and Project 15 Pan, there's not that much to report on really! 

The good (or bad) news is I've well and truely fallen off the wagon, spending a chunk of money on the new Mac Wonder Woman collection, and picking up a few other bits and pieces.  I'm waiting for my Mac stuff to arrive - lets hope it turns up today - so I'll do a review and swatches for you then.  I ordered my Mac bits on Thursday morning, but by coincidence, I happened to be passing Selfridges in Oxford Street yesterday so I took some photos of their fab window displays.  I popped inside, and the Mac counter was chaos - I'm so glad I ordered my stuff online - I reckon it would've taken an hour to get served, despite knowing what I wanted. 

The Selfridges window displays - I wasn't the only person taking photos of them either!

I know that a lot of people aren't really getting this collection, but for me it's the first Mac collection in ages that I've been stupidly excited about.  I love the Wonder Woman iconography, so what I've ordered is more for the packaging than the makeup.  Also, it's one area where mine and Mr TBBB's interests meet - he's a huge WW fan and a comic geek, so he's been reading about the collection on his comic blogs.  He told me that he read a review of the collection on one of his blogs that said it wasn't very good - this was before I had read a review of it on any beauty blog!

I'm not totally giving up on my Beauty Diet - I still want to use stuff up before buying more.  It's just that when you're using a product that doesn't work just for the sake of using it up, it's miserable and you may as well throw it away or give it away.  I'm still planning my whole year without buying shower gel challenge, and I'm working through my stash of lotions and potions.  However, I have splashed out on some haircare products - my hair was in a terrible state and needed some tlc.

I'm really looking forward to going on holiday in two weeks time!  I've fallen off the wagon in terms of weight loss, although I'm much happier about my weight than I was about a year ago. I'm over a stone lighter and at my lowest weight for a decade, so I can't really complain.  My skinny size twelve jeans fit, and even my Mum told me I was looking slim and she's not one for that kind of compliment, so I reckon I can survive the bikini baring!  The one problem is that I don't have any bikinis to wear, having not been on a proper beach holiday for years.  I have one tankini that is five years old and that is it.  I'm going to spend a couple of hours mooching on Figleaves and Bravissimo to pick out a few new bikinis later today.  I have F cup boobs, so I do have to spend a fortune on underwear/bikinis, but it really is worth it.

One of the good things about going on holiday in March is that the weather is cold in the UK at the moment, so I'm not flashing any flesh.  This has meant I've been able to grow my leg hair ready for a full leg wax (not just bikini).  I've not had a full leg wax for absolutely years, as I hate having the lower part of my legs hairy, and in the summer I like to wear knee length skirts, so I just shave them instead.  However, I now have very hairy calves, so I'll be able to get them all waxed off!  I've also decided to get my underarm hair waxed.  I've never had this done before, but I think it'll be so worth it.  I have quite thick, dark, underarm hair, so I tend to shave them everyday in the summer and it can really irritate my skin.  I'm looking forward to not having to think about this on my holiday!   I had a minor panic today as I tried to get a waxing appointment.  The salon near my office was fully booked on the few days before my holiday, and my favourite salon could only just squeeze me in at an inconvenient time.  I was worried I'd have to resort to some unfamilier salon or try and do the waxing at home, which isn't really an option.

Anyway, I hope to have some more posts over the next week, and proper beauty-related posts rather than just ramblings! 

Thanks for reading!  xx

Veet Institut Warm Wax - Review

Hi ladies.  Today I thought I'd review something I've had sitting on my bathroom shelf since the summer - Veet Institute Warm Wax.  I must admit that I have quite hairy legs, and I suffer terribly from ingrown hairs and rashes if I use hair removal creams (or even worse, shave) my upper thighs and bikini line.  So I do like to get my top legs professionally waxed.  However, I've been incredibly lazy and haven't waxed my legs since the summer!  I did use a hair removal cream a couple of months ago as I just couldn't stand my hairy legs any more, but since then I've gone for the natural look - not good. 

I bought this wax pot on a whim, as I've not used a warming wax since I had an incident heating one up on a stove, back in the late 1990s.  I forgot I was heating it when my then boyfriend rang me to dump me - nice!  It let to a mini explosion and a ruined saucepan and I was lucky I didn't break the cooker, cause a fire or anything worse.  So, understandably, I've not really been into warm wax since then.  However, those sticky strip waxes don't really work very well for me.  They are very fiddly, don't work that well and leave a horrible sticky mess all over my legs.  I've honestly NEVER sucessfully waxed my legs with them - despite that I keep on buying them - not sure why.

This pot looked good as it says that the wax is water soluble, and so you can wash away any sticky mess.  I thought that would be a good feature, as it is a messy business.  It also contains essential oils.

The wax comes in a screw top pot with a spatula, instructions and 12 fabric waxing strips.  I heated it up in a microwave for 60 seconds as instructed and prepared myself for the pain of a home wax.  I haven't shown it on the photos, but the spatula actually has a great little feature - it has a small temperature gague in the part that you put into the was which says 'No!' if the wax is too hot.  Mine did say No! so I busied myself for a couple of minutes until it was the right temperature.  It was actually still a bit too hot for my skin, so I'm really glad I didn't slap it straight on after the microwave.

I have to say that I was quite impressed with this product.  It worked so much better than waxing strips at removing the long, course hairs I get on my upper thighs and removal was relatively pain-free and clean, with very little sticky residue left on my legs.  I managed to do my bikini line and the front and sides of one leg quite well, before moving onto the other leg.  At this point, I realised that I only had three fabric strips left.  I used them as best I could, trying to do the hairiest areas first, but I quickly ran out of the strips.  So I wasn't able to finish both legs on this use. 

I found cleaning the strips, my hands, my legs, and a bit of wax I glooped on the bathroom floor pretty easy.  I had a shower and the wax easily came off my skin.  I peeled off the worst of the wax from the fabric strips and put it in the bin, and washed them in the sink - it took about 5 minutes and they are now hanging up to dry, almost as good as new.  The wax also just wiped up off the floor - no mess in sight!

However, I will have to go back and finish the other leg tomorrow.  At least there's not too much to do.  I was never going to manage to do the backs of my legs, especially as my hair there grows in loads of random directions, so I'm going to wax as much as possible, and use a cream to get the rest off.

The wax stayed hot enough to do all the waxing without needing to reheat it.  If I'd had a few more fabric strips, I probably would've blasted it for about 30 seconds again just to make it a bit more melted.  I used about a third of the jar to do my 1 1/2 legs, so I reckon you could get two proper waxes from this.  I think this is quite reasonable, at around £10 per jar, considering a salon wax will cost at least £20 for just one wax.  And Veet is always on offer at Boots and Tescos.

It is a fiddly process though, and you do have to be able to stand a bit of pain and discomfort to remove the strips (although less so than strip wax).  It took me about 40 minutes to do my legs, and I think it will take about 20 minutes to finish them tomorrow, followed by more washing of the strips.

So in terms of cost, ease of use and finished results this gets a Bristol Beauty Blog thumbs up.  But why did they only provide 12 fabric strips?  If there were 20, my legs would be completely smooth and hair free by now.  It is also a fiddly and time consuming process.  I did this today when I have the flat to myself, but my boyfriend already complains about the length of time I spend in the bathroom.  Add on the time for waxing my legs, and he'll be having a serious whinge!

By the way, I must apologise about the rubbish quality of the photos with this post.  Unfortunately my camera decided to break yesterday and is not working at all now, so I used my computer webcam for the pictures.  My phone camera is even worse!  I have some photos already taken for some up-coming blog posts, but I will need to get a new camera pretty quickly, as I use it almost daily for work as well as for blogging.  My current, broken camera was an Olympus point and shoot, and it wasn't very good quality at all.  If any bloggers use a good point and shoot camera for under £150, which doesn't wash out colours and has a good macro setting, please let me know your recommendations.  Unfortunately I'm skint at the moment, and have already requested Christmas presents from friends and family, so I'm going to have to crack open my savings to get a new camera...it is essential though.

Thanks for reading!