Amanda | The Womens Room

Things We LoveJanuary 11, 2018

Best Lip Balms for Broken January Skin

By Amanda

It’s that time of the year, when your lips feel like they’ve been used for pot scourers. Mine go flaky at the first hint of icy weather, then come over all super-sensitive when faced with central heating, wind, snow, hot… Read More

Fashion & BeautyJanuary 10, 2018

Buying Less: New Year Rules For Clothes

By Amanda

Not wanting to start the year with too much self-celebration but…small drum roll here please…I did it! A whole year of buying Nothing New. I didn’t buy any new clothes in 2017, despite a late trip to (very tempting) India… Read More

Health & HappinessDecember 22, 2017

A Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year To All

By Amanda

We are winding down for the year today, and wish you all a really joyous and peaceful festive season, where ever you are. We have the most wonderful readers on TWR and are so thrilled that you read us, leave… Read More

Fashion & BeautyDecember 20, 2017

Guest Post: Denim Expert Sue Barrett on The Great

By Amanda

We’re excited to introduce you to the ultra stylish denim expert Sue Barrett, who is our new guest blogger on all things indigo. Sue is one of the trend forecasting world’s most respected denim heads and because she’s a proper… Read More

Fashion & BeautyDecember 18, 2017

Last Minute Present Suggestions: The Vanity Fair Diaries and Vogue

By Amanda

Just in case you are searching around for last minute present ideas, I can thoroughly recommend the gossipy, fast-paced, style-nostalgia trip through the eighties and early nineties that is The Vanity Fair Diaries, written by Tina Brown. It’s a detailed… Read More

Fashion & BeautyDecember 13, 2017

Emergency Cold Weather Sweaters To Consider

By Amanda

I’ve nearly done a whole year of Buying Nothing, I can’t believe how fast the time has gone, but come January 2018 one of the first items on my list will be a piece of knitwear that will keep me… Read More

Fashion & Beauty, Health & HappinessNovember 30, 2017

A Scented and Healing Fog Cloud To Help You Keep Sane During Festive Madness

By Amanda

Last week I voluntarily sat in a cloud of delicately scented fog, fully clothed, while listening to an abstract, slightly beach-influenced sound track that gave me a moment of coastal calm in an otherwise mad week. I appreciate this might… Read More

Things We LoveNovember 28, 2017

Menopausal Beer From Libeeration

By Amanda

I can not believe we missed the press release by The Portsmouth Brewery from New Hampshire, about its new brew Libeeration Beer, which claims to ease menopausal symptoms. Its a lovely idea, the gruit style ale has replaced the hops… Read More

Food, We Are ReadingNovember 27, 2017

Cook Yourself Happy by Caroline Fleming

By Amanda

Are we over Skandi stuff yet? I ask because if we’re not, then this new cookery book by Danish lifestyle blogger and model Caroline Fleming might suit a millennial near you as a festive present. Caroline is one of those… Read More

Home & Garden, Out & AboutNovember 27, 2017

The Lovely Rakes Progress Pop Up Shop in Floral Street

By Amanda

Way back at the beginning of 2017 we told you about Rakes Progress, a fab, newish quarterly which put a beautiful contemporary spin on what gardening magazine should look like. Excitingly, the editorial team has made the magazine come to… Read More

Home & Garden, Out & AboutNovember 24, 2017

Guest Blogger Polly Leonard from Selvedge Talks Christmas and Festive Decoration

By Amanda

TWR’s friend Polly Leonard, founder of Selvedge magazine, is always full of bright ideas for artful gifts at Christmas, so when she offered to do a guest post on how she was tackling the festive season, from decorating to gifting,… Read More

Fashion & Beauty, Home & GardenNovember 22, 2017

Cosy PJs and Sleepwear from Gudrun Sjödén

By Amanda

I am a proud ambassador for the Swedish brand Gudrun Sjoden, mostly because I really like Gudrun herself and I am extremely impressed with what she has achieved as a grown up, creative woman who runs a very successful brand.… Read More

Home & GardenNovember 21, 2017

Special Offer Klaxon! La Montana Candles and Its Clever Scent Cards

By Amanda

I’m a huge fan of La Montana scented candles, from the delicious fragrances and the artful illustrations to the evocative stories surrounding founder Cassandra Hall’s Spanish village home, on which the brand is based, it all makes me want to… Read More

Things We LoveNovember 20, 2017

Empowering Women On Your Christmas Tree and Cards

By Amanda

We loved these alternative festive tree angels from the not-for-profit organisation Women To Look Up To. If you are fed up with the fey-looking fairy on your tree, replace her with someone a little more bad-ass and empowering this year.… Read More

Fashion & Beauty, Out & AboutNovember 15, 2017

Seed to Bottle Beauty with Parterre and L’Officine Universelle Buly

By Amanda

A couple of lovely new brands/stores to tell you about today. Firstly a new British fragrance brand Parterre, which is exceptional in that it is growing and distilling many of its fragrance ingredients at its historic headquarters, Keyneston Mills in… Read More

Fashion & Beauty, Health & HappinessNovember 10, 2017

A Few Good Reads for Grown Up Women

By Amanda

In the week where the new Vogue was born and the head count of grown up women between its pages reached a heady…..seven, (not including the adverts) we went searching for a few more relevant-to-us reads to keep us busy.… Read More

Out & AboutNovember 7, 2017

The Ethicurean On The Roof at John Lewis

By Amanda

I have been to John Lewis in Oxford Street more times than I can remember. The haberdashery department it is my happy place to go to whenever I have time to kill and I can often be found offering advice… Read More

Art & Culture, Fashion & BeautyNovember 3, 2017

The Sari Series, Inspiration For Textile Fans And Scarf Wearers Everywhere.

By Amanda

Sometimes the stars align in a quietly satisfying way and things fall so neatly into place that you do wonder if there IS an actual big plan. Middleson has (at last, he is 25 after all) left home, he has… Read More

Health & Happiness, Home & GardenOctober 25, 2017

Inspiring Grown Up Women: Kristina Karlsson from kiki.K

By Amanda

What is it about the Swedes? They seem to have been scattered with just a bit more style dust than the rest of us. That’s what I was thinking when I met up with Kristina Karlsson, founder of kiki.K, the… Read More

Things We LoveOctober 23, 2017

Fashion Families, ‘Go Fish’ for Fashion Fans

By Amanda

If you are the type of family that views autumnal evenings as incomplete without a board or card game played around the kitchen table, then the new Fashion Families may well be for you. If members of your family are… Read More

Home & GardenOctober 18, 2017

Mantlescaping and Tablescaping for Autumn

By Amanda

After Frieze Art Fair last week I popped over to the Decorative Antiques and Textile Fair in Battersea Park. I’d always wanted to go but never had, this season I rectified that and picked up a few decorative tips. After… Read More

Home & Garden, We Are ReadingOctober 17, 2017

The Secret Gardeners by Victoria Summerley

By Amanda

Oh my, this is a fabulous book for anyone who is a teeny bit nosy (in a Hello! crossed with Gardener’s World kinda way) and loves gardens. The Secret Gardeners, Britain’s creatives reveal their private sanctuaries is by Victoria Summerley… Read More

Out & AboutOctober 16, 2017

Guest Blogger Elena Bowes: Notes On Manhattan

By Amanda

Our guest blogger Elena Bowes has finally moved into her new apartment, but is finding things are a little different from the last time she lived in Manhattan. Love seems to dictate where I live. I moved to London three… Read More

Fashion & BeautyOctober 12, 2017

Frieze Fashion (and a bit of art) 2017

By Amanda

It’s hard to believe we’ve been writing up Frieze London Fashion since 2010, so much art and so many clothes! In Jane’s excellent Frieze Colour yesterday, she mentions she’s a little cynical about the art and the insanely rich people… Read More

Food, We Are ReadingOctober 6, 2017

The Flexible Vegetarian by Jo Pratt

By Amanda

When I first read The Flexible Vegetarian I wasn’t sure it was different enough to suggest you bought it, after all we’ve all got enough cookery books, recommending a new one requires it to have a strong point of difference.… Read More

Fashion & BeautyOctober 5, 2017

The Year Of Buying Nothing: How it’s Changed My Thoughts On Clothes

By Amanda

The Year Of Buying Nothing is not that far off over, I’m 5/6th’s of the way through and I’m hardly missing buying clothes. I am shocked at myself, if I was a clothes addict, then I’m finding withdrawal a lot… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 29, 2017

Smart Women Chefs: Nancy Silverton Needs The Right Clothes To Cook Well

By Amanda

I’m grabbing some late summer sun in Ibiza this week and reading a mountain of magazines and I was particularly struck by the Nancy Silverton article in Gourmand. I knew nothing about Nancy (I can see our American readers all… Read More

Out & AboutSeptember 27, 2017

Petersham Nurseries Opens In Covent Garden

By Amanda

The fabulous Petersham Nurseries is now something of an institution in west London, although no one who knows the place goes at the weekend because it’s so jammed. But mid week, for lunch and a potter around the carefully edited… Read More

Out & AboutSeptember 22, 2017

Guest Blogger Elena Bowes: What’s Cooking In New York This Autumn

By Amanda

Our New York correspondent Elena Bowes has rounded up some exciting cultural happenings in the city this autumn, just in case you are visiting, or you’re one of our NYC readers. Not jealous. Nope. Not at all. Over to your… Read More

Home & GardenSeptember 21, 2017

Crazy Things You Do When You’re Pregnant

By Amanda

I am now a solid nine months into my Buy Nothing year and I thought you’d like to know how I was getting on. People keep asking me how I’m doing, perching their heads to one side as you do… Read More