February Favourites: Blemish Patches, Sticker Scenes & the Best Crab Roll
February Favourites. AKA: things that caught my eagle eye this month and then impressed me beyond all expectation. There’s a video version of this post at the bottom of the page, if you’d enjoy a slightly more chaotic, much less relaxing experience than merely reading about the things I love, but make sure you do one or the other. There are some real gems in this month’s round-up!
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Cerave Blemish Barrier Patches
These discreet transparent face stickers are infused with spot-reducing ingredients: stick them onto your blemish before bed and the next morning it’ll be vastly deflated and less red. They really do work. There are lots of different versions of these patches, from different brands; I have to say that I’ve never used a spot patch that hasn’t worked. It’s an all-round excellent invention, because it keeps the ingredients close to the spot but also seals it off from the outside world and stops you from touching it or picking at it. How I wish these had been in existence a few decades earlier…
(Find them here online.)
3D Scene Sticker Books
The sticker books that single-handedly saved my half term holiday. Have you seen this “scene stickers” viral trend? You create very cute little cartoon scenes using pre-made backgrounds and the corresponding sticker sheets. They’re reasonably tricky as you have to layer up the stickers in the right order to create a 3D effect, but for keeping kids quiet (and tapping into their fine motor skills) they are absolutely next level brilliant.
I didn’t see my kids for about two days, they were just hunched over their sticker sheets with pairs of tweezers. Which actually doesn’t sound the healthy when I write it down, HA!, but it rained for almost entire week so they couldn’t run rampage around the garden or bounce on the trampoline.
I bought the mega-pack (see below) that has forty scenes and sticker sheets organised into two separate books, perfect for splitting between two kids. These would be brilliant if you were going on a flight (you can arrange the stickers without the need for tweezers, if you have small and nimble fingers) or if you desperately need a form of distraction so that you can get a bit of work done.
(find them here online.)
The Anchor at Seatown
I had some important things to do down at The Dorset Nook over half term and had blocked out a few days in between guests so that I could get them done.
I took my nine year-old with me and sold it to him as a seaside walking holiday and also (very serious job) told him that I needed someone to officially test all of the different Dorset ice cream brands to work out which was the best. (I think Purbeck’s, he thinks Baboo.)
Whilst down there we did my favourite bracing walk: straight from the cottage gate, down to Eype beach and then westwards up and over Thornecombe Beacon with its stupendous sea views, and down the other side to Seatown.
Seatown not only has a very picturesque beach (all of the Jurassic Coast is blessed with these wild-looking cliff-edged beaches), it has what I think is one of the best pubs in Dorset, possibly even England. It’s just the whole package, because it’s right on the sea and when you look through the windows you feel as though you could be hundreds of years in the past, and it also has creaky little rooms with wooden ships on the walls and other pirate-y artefacts, but then it has the food. Oh, the food! I’ve been there quite a few times now and it never misses.
Most recently, the crab brioche roll. If you follow me on Youtube and Instagram you’ll be so tired of hearing about this crab roll but honestly, I have actually had a little dream about it. It was that good.
So you come for the ye olde smuggler vibes and stay for the food. In the summer, a half pint of prawns and a bowl of chips with a chilled glass of rosé and you couldn’t convince me there was a better holiday feeling.
You can book the Anchor at Seatown here. I am not in any way affiliated with them but I am affiliated with The Dorset Nook (running it is my other job!) and if you want the perfect place to stay when you’re not eating the perfect seafood then take a look at availability here.
Narcos
I can’t believe it’s taken me and Rich over ten years to watch Narcos. It’s proper 10/10 award-winning television. (Rich gives it 9/10, if we’re going to be pedantic. I give it 9.5/10 and place it next to Rivals as the most enjoyable thing I’ve seen in ages. If enjoyable is the correct term for watching people have their heads cut off and put in fridges, etc etc. I mean, please don’t now watch Narcos thinking it’s similar to Rivals, you couldn’t get more different storylines!) Narcos is based on the story of Pablo Escobar, the most notorious drug lord to have ever lived and it is absolutely captivating. And so brilliantly filmed! And the casting, the script, the art direction… Ugh. We were totally immersed in it. I started dreaming in Spanish, I was so immersed, and I didn’t even know any Spanish prior to following the decades-long rule of a blood-thirsty Columbian narco-terrorist. Although I now could rattle off two or three incredibly offensive phrases thanks to old Pablo.
Look, I won’t sugarcoat it: Narcos is violent. Sometimes I had to look away. But this, technicolor violence aside, is the sort of considered, impeccably-produced television I really miss. So much TV now is written for people who only have half of their attention on the screen. They scroll on their phones at the same time and all of the storylines and scripts seem to cater for them, repeating even the most obvious plot points time and time again.
I wish the writers wouldn’t write for these scrollers because it’s absolutely ruining it for the people who want to engross themselves in something and who don’t have to have a phone glued into their hands every moment of the day. Are we really going to just keep brain-rotting everything down into little digestible spoonfuls to cater for shorter and shorter attention spans? Answers on a postcard.
Medik 8 C-Tetra Advanced
A serious skincare recommendation and one I’ve been meaning to post into my favourites for a while. I’m going to do an updated skincare routine very soon, because I have a few new tricks up my sleeve for maximising glow and keeping skin on an even keel, but this super-serum currently has 20% off (at time of writing) and so it’s a good time to snap it up if you’re looking to make a skincare investment that’ll pay off.
I use a vitamin c or antioxidant serum every morning after cleansing and before moisturising and SPF. (Most often my moisturiser and SPF are one product, but we will talk about that in the skincare post. You can also look at my most recent skincare routine here, which explains in a bit of detail the products I use and the order I use them in.)
The main objective when it comes to the vitamin c is brightness and evenness of skintone but it’s also raved about for its antioxidant effect. Helping to protect the skin against all of the elements in the environment that batter at the skin over time - UV, pollution, cigarette smoke (though that’s not so much of an issue these days, is it?)
Finding a mega-powerful version of vitamin c without risking irritation is not the easiest job, but Medik8 C-Tetra Advanced manages to be hugely potent whilst being easily tolerated. It’s great. Very high-end, very science-and-results-led (Medik8 are serious when it comes to getting the most active ingredients into their formulations) but with a price tag that I always think is slightly more palatable than some of their competitors.
At the time of posting C-Tetra is £56. This is a serum that really delivers when it comes to increased glow and brightness but that also helps to support the skin barrier, rather than disrupt and irritate it, and on top of all that gives excellent antioxidant protection. I’m a fan, if you haven’t already worked that out..
You can find it online here.
Right. Here’s the favourites video, for those of you who are thinking, ‘wow, I’ve read all of Ruth’s favourites but wouldn’t it be amazing to now see and hear her talk about the exact same things all over again.’
I’ve told you my favourites, here are some things I’ve absolutely hated. I mean hated. Because it’s good to have some balance in life, isn’t it?
