R-collection

R-collection is a Finnish clothing company. Its style is simple, honest clothing for leisure and all the clothes are really practical. The wonderful thing about this company is that they weave some of the fabrics they use in Finland, Orivesi. The fabric is thick cotton jersey and it is really long lasting, good quality fabric. They have the headquarters in Kajaani and that is where they also do patterns and cut the fabrics. Sewing is done in Estonia.

R-collection clothes are perfect to my boyfriend who is not metrosexual at all and likes simple, long lasting, classical clothes. I always buy something to him when visiting Finland; T-shirts, college trousers or hoodie. This time I wanted to buy him a jacket, but as he was not with me maybe better not; when back in Spain changing a product wouldn't be so simple. A pity they do not have international e-commerce; they only send goodies within Finland.

From sales I bought 2 dresses for me; a black autumn dress and a blue linen dress for summer. The linen dress had funny pockets in front and the fabric was really pretty as the weft and warp where different color, the other one black and the other blue, creating a beautiful color texture. The black dress was just a simple jersey dress with no fuss, easy going. Maybe if I add blue lace stockings I might get the outfit to rock a bit more.

To be honest the R-collection clothing is not fashion or fancy at all; it looks really "Finnish" so to say. The clothes are perfect for home and outdoors. They also have really loose cuts, so you can't find anything really tight there or figure hugging. Loose and practical.

The linen pocket dress.

Above the typical R-collection logo, and then the one that was in my dress, more fancy one. I don't really follow/understand the different logo in the etiquette of my jersey dress as it is not fancy at all and therefor the basic logo would be more suitable for it. 

Styling from the Olivia's August issue. I love those blue stockings, it would give a twist to my practical but boring black jersey dress.

More creams

I recall having seen this bright yellow cream in supermarkets in Finland, but I never would have guessed it is a Finnish product with the Key Flag Symbol on it. But it is.

It was launched in 1952 a prosperous time in Finland's history when Armi Kuusela was crowned to Miss Universum and the Olympic games where held in Helsinki. At that time cosmetic products were luxury items that only wealthy people could afford. Lemon Juice & Glycerine was designed to fill this gap and it surely did succeed as it became the favorite cream "for everyone". The name comes from the prime materials of the product; pampering lemon juice and moisturizing glycerine. The curiosity of the name is that it is in English, because at the time of its creation all the imported products were considered to be better quality so the manufacturer Transmeri wanted to give it an international air. The product has been always produced in Finland and the recipe has stayed almost the same for the past 60 years.

I was surprised about this history and decided to try out this nostalgic hand cream, the price is something like 3 euros so its not a catastrophe if it turns out to be bad. But it was great. The thing I was scared the most was its scent; I had an idea it might have strong lemon smell that I couldn't stand for it. I don't even use daily eau de toilettes as it might give me a headache. With this cream you hardly can smell the lemon, so that is great and it leaves your hands smooth and dries quickly.

The hand cream is the original product, but now within the years Transmeri has created a product family around it so you can find soaps and creams for feet as well.

Lemon Juice&Glycerine; I surely do recommend this product!

Mandatory Lumene purchases

Everyone who lives outside her home country more probably has a list of things to do and to buy when traveling back to home. The same for me; I'm always worried if I have time to eat the maximum amount of different milk products; yogurts etc. as in Finland there is an excessive selection of those, much more than in any other country and I don't even know the names of all these products as they don't exist anywhere else than Nordic countries. Milk is so good.

Other thing what I always do is that I buy a bunch of Lumene -products; some make ups and creams. Lumene is a Finnish cosmetic company that produces all its goods in Finland. They have very good price quality ratio and as the price segment is not too high, middle priced, I always buy some items when visiting Finland. I also like the Nordic, clean and fresh image that the company is famous for. There slogan is: "Beauty from the clean Nordic nature"(Kauneutta puhtaasta pohjoisesta luonnosta).

This time I bought Lumene Sensitive Touch creams + my regular powders and mascara purchases. New thing is CC Color correcting Cream (I haven't tried that yet). As the company is from Finland I can find good products with correct shades for pale, nordic skin. They also have good redness eliminator products for reddish couperose skin.

My mistake was to buy a new mascara and I didn't check the tester at all and the result was that the applicator is way too thick and therefor very messy when applying mascara. It reminds me more of a hair worm than a make up tool. I need to pay more attention to the testers next time.

Like two berries; Lumene mascara and a hair worm.

This time's Lumene Kit; Sensitive Touch Daily Moisture Cream, Sensitive Touch Comforting Night Cream, Sensitive Touch Comforting Eye Cream, Lumene Natural Code Skin Perfector Matt Powder, Beauty Base Red Neutralizer Concealer, Natural Code Skin Perfector Shine&Redness Eliminator, Natural Code Eye Dramatizer Volume-Maximisin Mascara (bad purchase), CC Color Correcting Cream

Banana Moon - made in Monaco (partly)

Lately it has been way too hot here in Barcelona. Absolutely too hot; impossible to do anything in the evenings. The day goes fine working in an air-conditioned office, but the evenings on the street or at "not air-conditioned" home are horrible. You just simply cannot do anything.

But for the weekends its fantastic if you can go to the beach. And even more if you have new bikinis from the summer sales. Already during few summers I have been checking the bikini models of Banana Moon, a swimwear brand from California. This year before heading to the sales I first went to the web page to check which models they have. The bikinis are bright colored Californian surfer style swimwear; I really like them.

This time I was surprised as I found "made in Monaco" -video from the web page, wow, I really didn't know they are producing the goods in Europe. I was pretty sure in their swimwear I would found "made in China" -etiquette  as in so many other (read: all) swimwear brands. A new thing was also that they have added lingerie to their lines, another wow, as almost all lingerie "is made in China". The lingerie looked too girly for me, but maybe on next season they might have something interesting. At least it is worth of remembering, because it is really hard to find any underwear made in Europe.

Well, delighted by the fact they produce in Monaco I went to El Corte Inglés to see if I could find some pretty bikinis and of course I did. In the etiquette though it said "made in Tunisia", so I had to write an email to Banana Moon to verify where they actually produce the goods. Immediately on the next day I had the answer in my inbox: "that the creation / design and cutting fabric on sophisticated machines are made in Monaco and the silkscreen and assembly of the swimwear is made in Tunisia". Tunisia is fine for me as we all are by the Mediterranean sea. Good and fast customer service.

My set of bikinis, all other photos a courtesy of Banana Moon.

HAKEI - good in Spain

A dress from HAKEI has been so far my only purchase from the sales. I could fulfill my desire to buy something mint. Mint has been on my mind since last year, starting with the trousers of Borne by Elise Berger (Feb -12) following by a blazer from HAKEI and continuing as a possible color for a room, but the only real thing I have so far is this dress. It is a 100% linen dress, I'm thinking of having it as an end of summer/beginning of autumn dress.

HAKEI is a Spanish family firm that dates back to 1946. Since then they have designed fashion and leather goods that are mainly produced in Europe, mostly in Spain and Portugal. They do have some clothes made in or imported from China/India, but they are only few, mostly you need to keep an eye on the etiquettes of jerseys if you want to stick to Made in Europe.

I recommend especially their shoes and bags; shoes are chick (and funny) good quality shoes (I own a few pair of them) and the bags have a huge selection of colors. I have no bag yet, but hmmm, that could be a good idea for a possible birthday present in October.

This is my mint linen stripes dress, very freshy. As it is white and the material is light linen it is quite transparent, so I need to invent something to prevent shoving off my panties.

Prado -blazer that has interesting texture and quite curious star button.

An example of different colors in form of a Subi -bag.