About A Little Miss

Little Miss Melbourne is your resident city girl and undomestic goddess with a penchant for good food, fine wine and fabulous company. This keeps her out and about - a lot. So she thought "why not share the good stuff with everyone else?", and in 2011 the lifestyle brand, Little Miss Melbourne, was born.

Who is LMM?

The person behind Little Miss Melbourne is Sarah Harrison, literally is a little miss. Originally hailing from the sunny West and after several years in London, she set her sights on Melbourne and has never looked back.

Sarah is also freelance copywriter at hot content. helping businesses achieve greater awareness, engagement and lead generation through effective content and marketing.

She loves travel, food, life and love and is always looking for the elusive greater meaning to life.

And she loves sharing the good word about Melbourne with the rest of the world (and sometimes other parts of the world with Melbourne).


On the topic of full disclosure.

The vision for the Little Miss Melbourne brand, across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and the blog, is to help support our city and the businesses, services and sub-cultures that contribute to making Melbourne one of the most livable cities in the world - much to the delight of its occupants. The best way for Sarah to do this is through online word of mouth.

From time to time, this might include promoting particular businesses or offerings in the city. If it's aligned with the brand and something the audience will enjoy hearing about, Sarah will volunteer her time to sample and share an experience through Little Miss Melbourne. Sponsored posts are also available and is always disclosed within the post.


Work with Little Miss Melbourne. 

If you have a product or service that you'd like to share with Melbourne, contact Sarah for a chat about how you feel it fits. If you're a business who needs professional marketing copywriting, hot content. is where it's at.


Media 

Please contact Sarah to request a media kit.

Kerastase Initialiste give away

Anyone with lot of stress, poor diet or not enough sleep in their life (ie, most of us) will tell you that the first thing to suffer is often our hair. Fortunately for us, Kerastase has developed a new serum using native plant cells which is designed to give us stronger, healthier hair at follicle level.

Kerastase has created Initialiste; a new product helping us give back to our hair, to get more out of it.  Literally.  I’ve been road testing the product for my hairdresser and here’s what I’ve found.

What does it do?

Kerastase Initialiste is designed to give you stronger, thicker hair, faster - without extensions, and without using harsh chemicals, or other counterproductive solutions. By optimising stem cells within the follicle and protecting against damage, Kerastase Initialiste helps support your hair from the inside out. David at Kings Hair in Melbourne Central, who put me onto the treatment, calls it “skincare for the hair”.  I call it, “the stuff that makes my hair soft, silky and smell nice”.  

How do you use it?
Application onto the scalp and hair is super easy and not messy at all, with the help of a pippet (the squeezey tube applicator thing). After a wash, you just apply two or four pippet doses of the silky liquid onto thoroughly towel dried hair.  Massage it through your hair to evenly distribute the treatment (which smells divine) and voila! Style as normal.

Does it work?
I've been using Kerastase Initialiste for about six weeks. So far so good - there's definitely been reduced hair fall when it's dry, and significantly less when I wash and blow-dry my hair. It makes my hair very silky and shiny, but can also make it a little limp (because it’s so fine).  For extra body I use Kevin Murphy's Full Again (smells yummy like marshmallows and is SLS free) and Toni and Guy Sea Salt Spray for wavy texture and a tousled finish.  I’m not sure how long the bottle of Kerastase Initialiste will last but it’s looking like about 12 weeks, maybe longer.

The cons.
I can’t see any negatives with the product.  Some might find it expensive at nearly $70 a bottle but if it lasts three months and delivers results, I think it’s very reasonable (I spend more on wine).  It is something which you need to keep using to enjoy the benefits – much like a face mask or skin cream.       

Where can you get it?
If your hairdresser stocks Kerastase products, ask if they have Initialiste.  It retails for $68 a bottle - comparatively less than getting hair extensions. 

Kings Hair in Melbourne Central currently have it in stock and are offering two readers a free bottle of Kerastase Initialiste with any colour booking made this week.  Just mention this post when you call to book your appointment. 

If you needed an excuse for a trip to the hairdresser, you got it.

Call Kings Hair (open every day from 10am) to book your colour treatment on (03) 9663 8359 and mention the Kerastase Initialiste give away.

Twitter: @kingshairmelb

If you’ve tried Kerastase Initialiste, or have any questions, let me know! 

Yours,

Little Miss Melbourne xoxo

There's a YouTube on the application for Initialiste here.

See also Skincare for the hair.

Skincare for the hair

I love my hairdresser.  He always knows the right thing to do, he tells me what my new ideas will really look like, and this month he gave me the new Kerastase Initialiste leave in treatment to try.   

My hair is healthy and shiny but given my propensity to go night after night without much sleep (boo for insomnia), it isn’t as strong as it could be from within the roots.  That’s my diplomatic way of saying I have really fine hair.  So after having a bit of whinge that I want thicker, stronger hair, he told me about the new product causing waves in the hair industry. 

Kerastase Initialiste could be described as skincare for the hair.  It’s an ‘advanced scalp and hair concentrate for substance, resistance and shine’.  Well that sounds good, right?  According to the internal leaflet, two stem cell pools exist in the hair follicle which can become damaged by external factors, affecting their activity.  Kerastase Initialiste uses plant cells to optimise the follicle and its regenerative functions.  My hairdresser also told me about all kinds of other things like gluco-lipids, oxidative stress and decreases in melanocyte cells.  I was confused too.  In simpler terms, this product is supposed to protect your hair from the inside out, at cell level, and help your little follicles do their job a lot better.   

Ultimately, this is meant to lead to thicker, faster growing hair, naturally.  So for someone who has healthy hair but experiences slow growth or a high fall rate – like petite moi – Kerastase Initialiste is here to save the day.

But does it do the job?  There’s only one way to find out.  So over the next 4-8 weeks I’m going to use the product for the suggested 2-3 times per week and report back with my findings.   

Watch this space my furry friends!  First post coming over the weekend when I use it for the first time.  See you then!

Yours,

LMM xoxo  

Already convinced?  You can get Kerastase Initialiste from Kings Hair at Melbourne Central, just near the clock tower.

The Winds of 2012

The winds of change in 2012...


Last week I ventured out for a 50km bike ride between Yarragon and Moe in regional Victoria.  This certainly isn’t the longest ride I’ve done but it was easily the hardest.  The ride to Moe was fine, meandering down old roads passing many a bovine with long blades of green grass poking out the side their mouths as they stopped mid-chew to witness our passing by.  The picnic at the somewhat decrepit Botanical Gardens of Moe was pleasant enough, if not a little eerie, sharing the park only with an elderly chardonnay-drinking man and the whooshing past of traffic from the nearby freeway. 

It was the long haul home that made this post-Christmas turkey-burning adventure resemble some kind of hell on a bike.  A hot, dry and strong head wind had picked up making it more difficult for an already struggling LMM (nothing to do with the amount of champagne consumed over Christmas).  I’d also chosen to leave my lyrca-bandit outfit at home instead opting for normal exercise shorts, sans padding.  Quite the painful mistake as it turns out.

Around about the time that I was scheming a fake puncture, I noticed a little ladybug enjoying some time out of its own on the leg of my shorts.  I have a big soft spot for these little crawlies; not only are they meant to be good luck should they graciously choose to land on you, they are also very cute.  My little passenger brought some much needed distraction away from the harsh air that was coercing a steady stream of water out of my eyes and with still 10km of the ride to go.

And that got me thinking about something else. 

I started to reflect on the journey that had been 2012.  Like the ride, it started out perfectly fine.  Many amazing people passed through, some of whom stayed and became very good friends.  I spent some time in Paris to replenish the soul and enjoy my fair share of Beaujolais.  But then after this little rest and half way through the journey, the winds of life changed considerably.  I found myself in a position where I needed to peddle, and peddle hard, to make sure I would progress in reaching my destination.  In this case though, life somehow provided a metaphoric tail wind, invisible but strong, which helped support my efforts and carry me through the rest of an exhausting year.

Today another ladybug landed on the windowsill of my apartment, just as I opened the window.  And with that I find myself reflecting on the race that was 2012, and entering a new year feeling not only very lucky, but extremely grateful, for what the winds of life might bring us. 

Happy New Year, with love, Little Miss Melbourne.

NB. No bicycles were harmed in the making of this post.

Time to Fly

Airports and travel amuse me.  Where previously I found them terribly intimidating, I now mostly enjoy observing the stark contrast of human behaviour thrown against highly regulated protocol and procedures. 

This is not limited to being nice to the people that work in this strange, isolated world and seeing their positive reaction in response.  I don’t think it happens to them very often and they are only people, after all.

But the key source of amusement around this part of a journey is the inevitable stop-go fiasco.  Before the airport, it’s go, go, go with packing and getting there on time.  And then you stop, and wait for however long it takes at check-in and bag drop (bless the development of mobile check-in).  Then it’s usually rush, rush, rush to find your gate and pick up a few items before your flight.  Stop, while you wait for boarding. 

Some people experience the need to rush again at this point, hastily getting into line to board a plane on which they already have an allocated seat.  I always chuckle at this part, especially when I catch myself doing it too.  But then it’s time to stop again, sometimes for a while.  If you’re in transit the pattern continues, particularly when your name is paged for final boarding while still making essential duty-free purchases at Tiffany; then you really rush.  Yet, still not quite as much as fellow travelers will when the plane has landed, the seat belt sign has been switched off, and there's a race to get out of the chair – only to stand and wait for the vehicle to clear.     

     
It’s just the nature of travel and our own human behavior.  The mere things we endure to visit the places and see the people we love the most.  Perhaps none of it would be a trifle of bother if we all started flying first class – but then it wouldn’t really change anything except maybe our mood after a vino in the Member’s Lounge.  I’m pleased in the very least to have started enjoying even this part of travel.  Surely, to be lucky enough to do it at all is something to appreciate and be grateful for in itself.

Your intrepid traveller,

Little Miss Melbourne
xoxo

Wheat Love Hate

I’m in Paris and surrounded at every turn by baguettes, brioche, quiche, and croissants; basically every kind of food that contains wheat.  Along with possibly the rest of the world, my relationship with wheat falls into the love-hate category.  I love how it tastes - I hate the way it makes me feel.  But in a two week Parisian eat-a-thon with wheat in almost every meal, I'm sure my hair has started falling more than normal.  And I don’t like it one little bit.

Kouignette from Maison Larnicol

What I do like is bread.  I like that one slice of raisin toast with my morning soy cap (oh Melbourne coffee, how I miss you) will fill me up for at least 4-5 hours.  I like that lunch then only needs to be smaller and later.  Not bad for the ole calorie intake or a busy day at work - but at what expense?  Seeing my hair throughout my apartment in Paris and suspecting wheat as the perpetrator I hit the ‘net for some qualifiedly unqualifiable information on the topic.

It took some wading through the repetitive sea of dietary complaints and blogs but it appears as though there is a connection (although there are a number of other factors to consider, too) – I’ve listed below some of the pieces I found helpful on this topic.  If you’re also scratching your head around unexplained hair fall and have a suspected sensitivity to wheat and/or gluten you may find them insightful too (please note these links are not sponsored and just what I found helpful).

Wheat Intolerance & Alopecia Areata (Livestrong)

Wheat and hair loss (HairgrowthUK)

Wheat Intolerance: the facts (Dailymail.co.uk)

Food intolerance (Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy)

If you don’t have a problem with wheat or gluten, I am highly envious and ask that you enjoy every morsel without the fear of bodily protest. For me, I am going to try turning over a new wheat-free lettuce leaf (again) – right after I fly out of Paris.

Au revoir!
LMM xoxo

Please feel free to share any insights, comments or information you feel others might appreciate on this topic.

LMM is not a medically trained professional and these are her personal observations and insights.  As always, check with your doc or your naturopath for advice or before making any radical diet or lifestyle changes. Merci!

Hi there, and welcome to LittleMissMelbourne's blog spot.  This has been a while coming but here she is at long last, late as usual.  So it's all about one Little Miss in Melbourne with plenty of dawdling thoughts, things to share and little daily wins delivered by life, shared with you over a beautiful glass of sparkling wine and some double brie.  After all, life is delicious - let's savour it.  I hope you enjoy what you find.  Or at the very least, take something from it...

Yours with love,

LittleMissMelbourne
xx