(More) New Glasses

My glasses addiction is getting nearly as bad as my shoe habit. I only used to have two pairs. For years and years, that was it, then at last count I somehow had eleven. How did that happen? And I'm still on the hunt for the elusive perfect green pair. Luckily Glasses Direct keep enabling me. Previously I've known exactly what I wanted from there and just ordered it but this time I was tempted by ALL THE THINGS. What's a girl to do but give the free home trial a go?



Yup, I mainly went for Scout glasses - they have such a nice colourful range that I always gravitate towards them when I'm browsing. The home trial option is super speedy and has the added bonus that you can do a mini specs parade in the office and get the team to help you decide which make you look most beautiful, rather than standing in an opticians and squinting blindly at the mirror. Score.

Alas my face was not playing ball when I tried to take trial pics of all the specs so you'll have to take my word for it that I looked extremely beautiful in all of them (naturally!). In summary, working from top to bottom in the above pic:

- Lush!
- Too big and chunky for my face.
- Ok but not a wow.
- Ace!

So I'd narrowed it down to red specs and Stormtrooper specs:





It was a hard choice but I went for...

RED SPECS!

Emily by Scout, to be exact. They are super duper lightweight (so light that you put them on and think "huh, these don't feel like there's anything on my face") with a lovely matt effect finish. It always takes me ages to get used to new glasses when they're a different shape and I battled for ages with not thinking I suited bigger frames but I was smitten with these straight away. All hail the big frames!



And while Glasses Direct were kind enough to send me this pair for review, because they're lovely like that, I do spend my own hard-earned cash with them as well. When their offers are that good, you kinda have to! I treated myself to a nice blue-framed pair of Scout Firework glasses and this Festival pair with a sunglasses tint on the lenses just before my January holiday. Total cost £55. Is it any wonder I've ended up with so many pairs?!

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Bloggers & Brands

You know what I don't like? Being sent a generic email asking me to give over an entire blogpost so that I can enter a competition and be in with a tiny chance of winning something. That's not working with bloggers, that's asking a huge bunch of them for a load of free advertising space but couching it in "Yay, competition!" terms.  I'm sure it makes perfect business sense and if other people want to take part, great, but those emails really rub me up the wrong way.  I'd so much rather companies were honest about it. Either pay for sponsored posts or send out products for review or do something else innovative but don't sneak around pretending that this is an awesome opportunity you've laid on specially for us when all you want is free advertising.

You know what I do like? Brands that get social media and use their Twitter account for things other than retweeting how awesome they are. Brands that want to work with bloggers and realise the benefits of it. Brands that understand building a community and a following are important. Get us on board: we like to shop and spend money, we like to write, we like to take pretty, arty photos of products. We have lots of readers. We can be useful to you and we'll be loyal if we like you. It's a no-brainer really, isn't it?

Here are two brands that I've been in touch with recently. Both of them rock. They're happy to work with bloggers, talk to us rather than at us and yes, offer us some free products as a way of promoting them and spreading the word. Nowt wrong with that!

I've never fallen into the blogger trend of owning a satchel. I basically don't like them. I love a good leather bag but they have to be something a bit special to win me over, so I was quite happy to stick with the massive handbags I already own. Then I went to a BBQ with Char a few weeks ago and on the way home I shared a car seat with her Brit Stitch Half Pint bag. It was so ridiculously cute I nearly stole it. Far too small for my needs, but then I discovered that they did a size called the Milkman and, well, come to Alex, my preciousssssss.....

You can fit a book in it! It's not a useful bag unless it passes this test.

It may not be quite as ridiculously cute as the Half Pint but it's even more beautiful. Such a gorgeous shape and colour. If I had room to store them I'd get one in every colour.

Check out Brit Stitch on Twitter and Facebook and say hello. Jen runs their social media stuff and she's doing a kick-ass job at it.

Brand number two: Sunglasses Shop, and their sister site Glasses Direct. Both are super happy to work with bloggers. I'm an awkward customer and need prescription sunglasses, which unfortunately Sunglasses Shop aren't able to send out for review (damn my wonky eyes!), but they very kindly sent me this cute Scout Marilyn pair of specs from Glasses Direct instead.

I showed them to the Mothership and she pulled That Face. You know the one. "I think they look bloody awful on you but I'm too polite to come out and say it so I'll just try (and fail) at keeping my face non-commital and go 'Mmmmhmmmm, very nice' instead". That Face.

Meh. Yes, they're probably a bit big for my face and no, I'm not the sort of pretty young thing that can wear massive specs and look cute and ironic. I just look like a dick who picked some glasses that are too big for her face but WHATEVER. I don't really care. I like them.

And I like Glasses Direct because they have awesomely low prices and their customer service is good. I've tested out the returns policy and I can assure you that a) they actually reply to emails, b) they're polite and helpful and c) they sort things out quickly. So I bought these Audrey glasses with a sunglasses tint as a treat for myself. Woop. First pair of prescription sunglasses I've ever owned. That's quite bad isn't it? My poor eyes.

(the rule about glasses being too big for your face doesn't apply with sunglasses. The bigger the better.)

Just for the sake of clarity, the bag and the specs are c/o Brit Stitch and Glasses Direct respectively. I bought the sunglasses myself. They're all great.