Amanda | The Womens Room

Out & AboutJanuary 2, 2013

Go See: The Rain Room at The Barbican

By Amanda

Happy New Year to you all, we hope your festive season was fun and you are all nicely relaxed and ready for whatever 2013 brings. We both had a fabulous break and return re energised to inspire you anew. After… Read More

Food, We Are ReadingJanuary 1, 2013

Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi

By Amanda

Debora was right, this is a fabulous cookery book. I can now make stonkingly good houmous and it’s all due to this. A gem. Buy here… Read More

Out & AboutDecember 24, 2012

We love: Brasserie Zedel

By Amanda

If anyone is thinking of coming up to London during the festive period for sales, the theatre or some culture, can I recommend heartily the Brasserie Zedel as a great place to stop for refuelling? Canny Londoners may already know… Read More

Fashion & BeautyDecember 22, 2012

Trouser suits and androgynous dressing

By Amanda

I am currently obsessing about this lovely shot of Agyness Deyn in her wonderful cocoa brown, three button trouser suit. I am going to have to have this -or something like it- next year and am going to be searching… Read More

Fashion & BeautyDecember 20, 2012

Amanda’s pre-Christmas perfume round up

By Amanda

While we are talking about Christmas adverts, am I the only one completely baffled by the current crop of TV perfume adverts? It’s like the perfume houses are stuck somewhere in the mid 90s, imagining we all want to slink… Read More

Home & Garden, We Are ReadingDecember 18, 2012

The Fifties Mystique by Jessica Mann

By Amanda

This fab little book tells the 50s as it really was, as opposed to the rose-tinted view we sometimes have when we moan about how terrible things are today and how everything was better ‘back in The Good Old Days….’… Read More

Fashion & BeautyDecember 18, 2012

Eye-Spec’s foldable reading glasses

By Amanda

It’s wrong to love a product because of its packaging isn’t it? Wrong. But as I type this, I have at my side my lovely silver satin reading glasses case from Eye-Spec, a new reading glasses company. The glasses are… Read More

Fashion & BeautyDecember 16, 2012

What did we do before Down jackets?

By Amanda

Sub zero temperatures are hard to cope with at the best of times, but I do wonder how we survived before the down filled jacket became such a wardrobe staple. I used to think the only thing guaranteed to keep… Read More

Out & AboutDecember 14, 2012

New store love: Bloom Perfumery in Spitalfields

By Amanda

We have a new perfume-store-favourite, the seriously interesting Bloom Perfumery in Spitalfields, owned by Oxana Polyakova. What I loved about the store was the curated selection of really beautiful smells from interesting and below the radar niche, artisan and specialist… Read More

Things We LoveDecember 12, 2012

Sai-Sei Japanese skincare range

By Amanda

I am a little bit obsessed with anything Japanese when it comes to skin care, as I know how seriously they take their cleaning routines. Washing can be something close to a religious experience for some Japanese and there is… Read More

Home & GardenDecember 12, 2012

All I want for Christmas: Amanda’s list

By Amanda

What I’d really like for Christmas is a Porsche like Saga’s. You remember Saga from the TV series The Bridge? Slightly odd Swedish police detective who wears leather trousers and drives around very fast in an olive green vintage Porsche.… Read More

Fashion & BeautyDecember 10, 2012

Stylist Emma Freemantle, Worn With Love and barge living.

By Amanda

If anyone is harbouring dreams of giving it all up and living a quieter, slower life away from the madness of our hi-tech lives, this might be the post for you. Pictured above is the fashion stylist Emma Freemantle, who… Read More

Food, Home & Garden, We Are ReadingDecember 8, 2012

Recipe Journal by Orlando Gough

By Amanda

It’s a while since we popped over to the Toast Travels section of the Toast website, run by Rachel Seaton and we’ve missed a lot, its got all sorts of interesting things going on. The first thing to notice… Read More

Home & GardenDecember 8, 2012

Christmas Marmite, the Gold Limited (bling) Edition

By Amanda

Can I just check all the Marmite lovers out there have got their jar of Marmite Gold? It is the most fabulous thing to happen to Marmite since the champagne edition, only this is better as addIng gold coloured flecks… Read More

Middle Aged MumDecember 6, 2012

Middleagemum.com: my problem with singing carols

By Amanda

For as far as I can remember since the kids were small, December means carol concerts and obvs, carol singing and last night we went to youngest teen’s school performance (above). When they were tiny it was all about the… Read More

Fashion & BeautyDecember 4, 2012

Vintage style at Blue Linen

By Amanda

When I am half way through my interview with Su Mason, co owner of Blue Linen, a vintage clothing and linen seller I met at Hammersmith Vintage Fair, she almost makes me snort my tea across her kitchen table by… Read More

Home & GardenDecember 2, 2012

A stylish Christmas Star from John Kostick

By Amanda

If-like me-you buy one or two investment Christmas baubles for your tree every year, a small consolation of ageing is that by the time your kids become teenagers you find you’ve accumulated an impressive (if slightly eclectic) collection, to the… Read More

Novels & Biogs, We Are ReadingNovember 30, 2012

Instructions For A Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell

By Amanda

This is the very first Maggie O’ Farrell book I’ve read, and it wont be the last, this is a book I would put into the ‘don’t want the bus/train journey to end because I don’t want to stop reading… Read More

Out & AboutNovember 30, 2012

We love: Paperplain Letterpress personalised printing

By Amanda

There’s a lot of similarity between stationery and fashion. Both are about the appreciation of beautiful textures and surface details, clever design and a sense of beauty. OK, so it might seem a long stretch from a designer-of-the-year Stella McCartney… Read More

Health & HappinessNovember 28, 2012

Give as you Live: guilt free Christmas shopping

By Amanda

As you reach for the mouse to do all your Christmas shopping this year (internet shopping is about the only growth area in retail right now) can we suggest you download the Give as you Live charity donation idea? It’s… Read More

Art & CultureNovember 26, 2012

See this: Kate MccGwire’s LURE exhibition at All Visual Arts

By Amanda

Over at the All Visual Arts gallery (fast becoming my favourite gallery in London) there is a new exhibition LURE, by artist Kate MccGwire. My taste in art leans towards the romantically beautiful, with a touch of macabre taxidermy thrown… Read More

Things We LoveNovember 24, 2012

Martha Stewart does Christmas Wrapping at Staples

By Amanda

For those of you who found yourselves spoiled for choice with the Martha Stewart for Staples stationery collection earlier this year, bad news. There’s more. And it’s Christmas themed. If you haven’t found it yet, the label and paper range… Read More

Health & HappinessNovember 24, 2012

A Tale Of Two Gadgets at Philips

By Amanda

As Christmas approaches and you start to get ideas about what you might like from Santa, some of you might be thinking about asking for some of the new laser light gadgets turning up everywhere (beauty is heavily into gadgets… Read More

UncategorizedNovember 24, 2012

Something for the weekend: West End VIP Day

By Amanda

Just in case you are thinking of starting your Christmas shopping this weekend and you live near London, it’s car free day today, Saturday 24th November, in the centre of town. Also there are a number of special offers,… Read More

Out & AboutNovember 22, 2012

Angela Flanders new store and Aqua Alba perfume

By Amanda

While we are on the subject of women achieving success in the world, one of our favourite female perfumers, Angela Flanders, has got a new shop in an extremely cute space in Artillery Passage, which is a Dickensian-style, history-soaked backwater… Read More

Things We LoveNovember 21, 2012

A Right Royal Christmas Fairy

By Amanda

Actually, she’s not so much a Christmas fairy as a Diamond Jubilee Christmas princess, as maker Dinah Nicholson has named each one of the limited edition of 50 fairies after royal princesses and queens from history. The 50 ‘girls’ are… Read More

Health & HappinessNovember 20, 2012

The Women’s Room explains how to avoid Christmas stress: knit! (or sew)

By Amanda

Over the past month I have been to a number of craft fairs and at all of them I was reminded of how so many of us love to make things. We may be as busy as heck but we… Read More

Things We LoveNovember 19, 2012

Marks & Spencer’s new Flatter-Me arm wear

By Amanda

You may remember we wrote about Mary Portas’s excellent idea Armery back here. Well, not surprisingly we’re seeing similar product popping up elsewhere, including this new Flatter-Me arm wear top from M&S. Our issue with Armery was the problem with… Read More

Health & HappinessNovember 18, 2012

The Women’s Room V The Women’s Room.org.uk

By Amanda

So after two long weeks of frustration, confusion and sleepless night, Jane and I are unable to do anything about the fact that another site and twitter name has been set up as The Women’s Room. We asked politely by… Read More

Things We LoveNovember 16, 2012

Perfume review: new smells from Grossmith

By Amanda

Good to see the Grossmith perfume house (we wrote about it here) doing so well since its relaunch. Co-re-founders Amanda and Simon Brookes have worked their socks off to bring the historic perfume brand into current times and now have… Read More