If you happen to have a friend from northern Brazil or Columbia, they might tell you of a fruit from the cacao family called cupuaçu. They say it smells like a cross between chocolate and pineapple and the juice tastes like pear and banana.

Beauty products are an extension of your overall look and our top 5 gets you there faster, for flawless results. Trust us, you’ll be obsessed with these to treat your skin, hair and lips for the quality and reliability to switch up your style as you please.

Our top five products gives you a head start with skin, hair and nails with brands we sample ourselves

OPV Matt Liquid Lipstick

The BRAND NEW OPV Beauty matte liquid lipsticks are available in 25 fabulous colours to suit you and your mood.

You will love the effortless application, giving your lips a tender coverage that dries to a gorgeous matte finish - Let your lipstick do all the talking!

OPV Lipstick £7.99

Only Curls Conditioner

A volumising, conditioning, protein rich mousse perfect for curly or wavy hair. This lightweight foam styler will help to boost volume, smooth frizz and define curls, all with weightless hold. The special blend of rice water, rice protein, and pro-vitamin B5 helps strengthen curls, replenish moisture and prevent breakage.

Onlycurls.com £16

Mylee Speckled Matte No Wipe Top Coat

Give your manicure a stunning black speckled matte finish with this top coat. Perfect for a mini-egg effect at Easter over your favourite pastel polishes! Packed with irregular black fragments and with a matte finish you can protect your polish from natural wear and prevent chipping and peeling for a long lasting manicure. Perfect over any MyGel polish shade, the 5-In-1 Builder Gel and Polygel! With no tacky inhibition layer to remove, you're good to go once cured!

Mylee Speckled Matte No Wipe Top Coat 15ml £8.50

The Jojoba Company Youth Potion

Formulated with signature Australian Wadi-Wadi Jojoba, the Jojoba Company’s Ultimate Youth Potion + L22 ® is naturally packed with antioxidants, omegas, and vitamins. Delivering superior anti-ageing results for all skin types without harmful additives or chemical nasties. It has been developed to prevent and repair fine lines and wrinkles and is clinically proven to deliver results. Sustainably and ethically sourced ingredients such as patented L22®, a blend of botanical oils that deliver the same ratio of lipids as healthy 22-year-old skin, and free-radical fighting CoQ10 work together with Jojoba to activate your skin’s natural intelligence to boost skin hydration, enhance firmness and elasticity whilst restoring healthy skin lipids.

Ultimate Youth Potion + L22® – The jojoba Company UK £29.95

Eresos Aloe Vera Hydrating Face Mask

For some serious skincare pampering, our 500mg CBD isolate infused moisturising and calming Derma Hydrating Face Mask is packed with natural extracts of Aloe Vera and Chamomile for an instant pick-me-up. Easily applied and easily removed, the soothing Kaolin clay will give you a healthy, fresh complexion and long-lasting results.

www.eresos.co.uk £45 (500mg)

Why so obsessive?

If you’ve been hankering for a deep intensive repair for your face, we think you’ll love Eresos who design their products for a longer result and of course the Jojoba Company for quality ingredients that work along with your own skin’s ecosystem.

As far as DIY nails are concerned, we say, the time spent polishing and sealing that perfect pigment must endure washing up the dishes and a steamy bath as a minimum. It’s all in the top coat friends! The Mylee Top Coat is to be teamed up with their Mygels range but also what you already have in your home. We expect thank you letters on this recommendation alone.

We really do have to mention the level of protein rich ingredients in the curling mousse here. It reminded us of the home remedy of egg yolks as a hair conditioner, but this offers a great vegan alternative for hair breakage repair (and without the mess)!

And finally, for real lipstick, we truly believe your lips should do all the talking with a dense and rich pigment. Whether you intend to say anything or not. Embracing “the silent type” with a subdued matte finish is sexy, sultry and easy to achieve with a reliable lipstick such as OPV.

Hot five, reviewed by Fashions Finest. But we want to see your beauty stories. Tag us on instagram @fashionsfinestuk and we'll feature our favourite!

Be sure to check our product reviews in our blog section and sign up to our newsletter here as the reviews go live, you’ll be the first to know.

Hayaty Natural is inspired by the ancient Egyptian approach to beauty and believes in the health of the body both inside and out.

October is an important month for us as we celebrate Black History Month. Fashions Finest salutes this month by celebrating big and small realities in the beauty and fashion industry with you all.

Ph. Rodnae Productions, Pexels

The contribution of the Black communities in the UK has been underrated or simply unseen for too long. Yet Black Britons have enriched our cultural landscape and economy with vibes and stories coming from afar. Fashions Finest wants to celebrate black innovators and strong business women who make our life more beautiful.

Every month tinges with different colours and surges as the flag for a cause. Fashions Finest's Black History Month is a journey across people and ideas fueled by a courageous entrepreneur spirit and passion.

Meet Tiph'arah

Tiph'arah is a UK-based haircare company born in Coventry, Midlands. The brand moved its first steps in the intimacy of a house - to be more precise - a kitchen. Jessica Oduro, the founder, was looking for intensive and natural options that could keep her Afro hair nourished and hydrated for longer. Failed to do so, she started to experiment with natural and organic ingredients at home until she found the right formulation for glorious hair. 'Tiph'arah means 'glory' in Hebrews, in fact! Tiph'arah's hair butters aim to strengthen the hair strands, hydrate and promote healthy growth. The product range, consisting of three types of hair butter (Shea Cocoa Mango, Paw Carrot and Shea-Mang AVO'), is made with 90% of pure and organic ingredients from Ghana and the remaining sourced in Europe at high standards.

Meet Aviela

Aviela (read [a-vee-el-ah]) is a word used in Northern Ghana for 'good', 'nice' or even 'beautiful'. This word conveys very positive vibes. Aviela is the child of Patricia Monney who, during a family holiday in Ghana in 2007, was introduced to the power of raw, unrefined shea butter to heal her little daughter's ankle. Patricia learnt about shea butter anti-inflammatories properties and, once back home in the UK, she focused on expanding her knowledge on shea butter. She found a way to work the natural ingredient without compromising the natural properties and qualities of shea butter. The solution was her kitchen helper which gives Aviela products that superb weightless whipped consistency. Aviela offers a range of skincare and body care for all skin types with 100% pure, unrefined shea butter. Patricia sources her shea butter ethically from a cooperative of 25 women from the village of Gurugu in the Northern region of Ghana.

Meet Pamoja

Pamoja (read [pam-oh-jah]) is a Swahili word meaning 'together' and is inspired by formulator and founder Sarah Taylor's Tanzanian/British heritage as well her skin journey. During pregnancy, she experienced severe sensitivity and succeeded in finding the solution by herself. She worked on her own products and formulations gaining also some spotlights in national magazines.

This independent, black-owned company offers natural skincare with high performance and quality standards. Cruelty-free and environmentally friendly, Pamoja takes equal care of sensitive skin and the environment with sustainable packaging, ethically sourced botanical ingredients and zero palm oil. Sarah thinks that 'everyone deserves to feel good and that when you are kinder to yourself, it will help you be your very best.' For Sarah 'Black History Month is an opportunity to be more inclusive, to shine a spotlight on the contributions and the challenges we face so that we can better understand our collective history every single month of the year.'

Meet Wax + Wraps

For many of us, the pandemic represented a forced stop; however, this suspended time allowed us to reset priorities and rebuild ourselves. This happened to Jaqueline Shaw with Wax + Wraps. The fashion expert and entrepreneur overcame the COVID-19 backlash thanks to her acumen and love for fashion design. She realised how many people get interested in handmade and sewing during the pandemic and she also noticed how popular were and are still crafting subscription boxes.

Jaqueline, who has an MA in Ethical Fashion, is passionate about Africa and traditional fabrics. She put this personal love in her own subscription box by sourcing unique textiles printed, woven or knitted by hand in African states and regions. 'Other sewing boxes do the job but they are all very similar and I felt that they don’t inspire me to learn more about the people or even to source responsible fabrics and textiles too. My Master's degree in Ethical Fashion from the UCA Epsom, taught me that in this fashion industry, WE the consumers are the change we want to see. We are responsible for the impact of the industry on our planet and our purchasing decisions can build or break the industry. And its environment impact.'
Jaqueline thinks that 'Africa is Fashion's Future' and has been spreading awareness at previous London Fashion Weeks and events in Africa and the States. We could not but totally agree on that. Her sewing box does not just quench our thirst for crafts but also disclose stories from beautiful lands and people as no other service does.

Saka Luxe Beauty

Many feels puzzled by the length and complexity of cosmetic labels. This exact reaction is behind Saka Luxe Beauty, a UK natural hair and skincare company founded in Bristol in 2020. Available on Etsy, eponymous of everything handcrafted, the brand's ethos is based on creating simple and affordable products to moisturise and nourish hair, beard and body. Every jar of butter, every bottle of oil is handmade in small batches to ensure a caring and luxurious feel.

Jessica, Patricia, Sarah and Jacqueline are just four of the many black businesswomen that turn their creative verve or necessity to express themselves and made a living from their passion. Black History Month is important to us because the majority of the black-owned businesses are too small to gain the deserved visibility on the media and still struggle in this overcrowded industry.

We invite you to have a look around and discover the authenticity of these companies and that of many similar ones. As you and we shop independent and black-owned, we can support these individuals and make a little but significant change in their lives, ours, and the way we shop.

Fashions Finest is happy to bring you these personal stories and call all the black-founded companies to get in touch to join us and build together a network of creators beyond Black History Month.

We know well how curly and Afro-textured hair needs special care to maintain its luscious beauty and health. Sophia London, a new haircare brand, answers this 'emergency hair call' with its official launch.

Your haircare routine can be more sustainable both inside and outside the bottle. This is Arbonne's novelty: a newly launched haircare range reimagined to be completely green: TrueSmooth.

Afro cuts are on our radar for Spring/Summer hairstyles. A-list hairstylist Stefan Bertin - who counts the likes of Letitia Wright, Hannah John Kamen, Elle Eyre, Sabrina Elba, AJ Odudu, and many more amongst his clientele - has revealed how natural hair textures can get the '70s hair look that is so hot right now.

Pure Anada's new Shampoo and Conditioner Bars are formulated to be kind to your hair and kinder to the environment.