Bare Mineral Marvelous Moxie Lipgloss in Hypnotic

Lipgloss isn't something I associate with Bare Minerals very much.  Lipstick, yes (their Marvelous Moxie range is very well, and aptly named), and of course, there is their iconic range of mineral foundations and powders, but ... lipgloss?

Look at it.  LOOK AT IT!  Oh, those prismatic pigments, this is so pretty!

And with flash, so you can see how the colour changes in different lights:

:sigh: so pretty.  So very, very pretty.

Here's how it swatches in different lights:

Hmn ... lets try again from a different angle:

Okay, once more?

It's definitely more of a layering gloss, this one, I think.  Here it is over Max Factor Lipfinity Just in Love from the other day:

Can you tell the difference from the original below?

So, Hypnotic it may be in the tube, it's rather ... subtle in the flesh.  Lovely to look at, but simply not that exciting to wear, I'm afraid!  It's a nice, non-sticky gloss, however, with a little hint of peppermint flavour,  just a shame it's a bit underwhelming out of the tube.  Some of the other BareMinerals colours are much, much better in the gloss formulation, I'll show you those soon.

Available from Debenhams costing £16.

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By Terry - Cheek to Cheek: Cherry Cruise and Tint to Lip: Pink Palace

I'm a sucker for a stain.  Well, some stains, anyway - tea, spag bol, toothpaste not so much (I'm a mucky pup) - gimme a cheek or a lip stain, and I'm happy.   Particularly a lip stain.  I love my bright lipsticks, as some of you might have noticed, but it drives me bananas when they don't last.

Enter By Terry, with a couple of stains perfect for the cack-handed muppets amongst us, and I'm happy to report that they're amongst the more affordable products in her range too, which is good news!

First, Cheek to Cheek in Cherry Cruise:

 Such a pretty, bright cherry red!  It comes with an innovative dropper applicator and a pop up lid:

 The formula is bi-phase, one layer is the red pigment (referred to as a syrup in the literature, but it's not as sticky as this might make it sound), and one layer is silver shimmer, you can shake to mix the two, and have a slightly more opaque and definitely more shimmery colour, or you can just leave the shimmer to settle to the bottom of the bottle and use the "syrup" alone.

Best thing about this formula is that it is blendable.  We have all seen cheek stains that stain from the very first instant it comes off the brush - STRIPES! - and have ended up with dolly-cheeks as a result, but with this one, you just drop a drop (two if you're braver than I am), rub it onto the fingers of both hands and blend into your cheeks.  You'll have around a minute to play, and you won't get those little tell-tale circles on your mush.

However, nothing budges this stuff.  It'll look the same when you come to take it off as it did when you first applied it, and that's fabulous. Just make sure you have kind lighting in your bathroom the first time you use it, as it can be easy to overapply when you're still getting used to it.  I warn you!

Now, the Tint to Lip in Pink Palace, in the same two-phase formulation as the Cheek to Cheek above, it's purely for your lips:

Here it is both without the shimmer, and shaken to show the more opaque shimmery formula.  A cooler-leaning raspberry pink, it is unusual for a lipstain in not going completely fuchsia as you might expect on the lips.

It is ... fairly ... long-lasting.  It won't survive a sandwich, but a couple of cups of tea won't scare it completely off.  Personally, I prefer the look of the tint without the shimmer on the lips, I think it looks a bit frosty with the shimmer and that isn't a good look on someone my age, whatever the shade, but the colour, for me is perfect.  One coat is just enough to give my lips a whisper of colour, but you can build up the pigment for a more intense look.

Here you can see the differences between the colours more clearly.  A bright cherry red, and a clear raspberry.  Here's how they apply on the skin:

OBVIOUSLY I've overapplied!  But you can see how the products stay runny when applied to the skin, which is what allows you some blending time.  I wiped half of this off, and blended them out:

Again you can see the (slight) differences between the colours, and the sheen you get from shaking the product up.  However for the cheeks, you really do only need a single drop, I probably applied enough for four cheeks here.  The lips you'll probably need about two dips with the doe-foot sponge, more if you want to layer up.  Both products have the classic By Terry rose scent, but it wears off quickly, and you don't have that nasty chemical after-taste with the lipstain.

Cheek to Cheek costs £29 and Tint to Lip is £22, which, in By Terry terms, is practically pocket change.

The Fine Print: PR Samples.  Pictures for this post were taken with a Nokia Lumia 1020 lent by Microsoft.

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Max Factor Lipfinity Revisited

Lipfinity was launched by Max Factor in 2000, but there was always something rather ... nineties about them, if you ask me.  It was the brown-ness.  They were firmly stuck in that rust rut that I always associate with the late 90's, where blush, shadow and lipstick were usually the same terracotta shade.  Get Lippie doesn't really do brown.

Especially not like this:

She's so beautiful.  I'd look like an Oompa Loompa. More so than usual, I mean.

I'd just look like my face was dirty.  Monochrome brown is a great look for some, but ... well, it's not for me.  Brown is what I think of when I think of Lipfinity though, I can't deny it.

But, I was re-introduced to the range recently (hey, only 14 years behind the curve, never say we're not trendsetters here at Lippie Mansions), and I was delighted to notice they had some really lovely BRIGHT colours! Not a brown in sight!

Here we have shades (L-R):

006 - Always Delicate: beige-peach
024 - Stay Cheerful: lovely cool pink
120 - Hot: tomato red
146 - Just Bewitching: creamy coral
335 - Just in Love: raspberry

Yes, yes, I know, beige is a kind of brown, shut up!  There's nothing rusty about these colours though, they're gorgeous.

Hot and Just in Love have a hint of gold and silver shimmer respectively, but the other three are cream shades.  The shimmer is barely (if at all) perceptible on the lips, but it just stops the colours looking too flat in the tube.

Even thought I'm not at my most comfortable in "nude" shades, 006 Always Delicate is wearable for me because it contains a lot of pinkish-peach, and it's good for adding a polished look to a no-makeup face.  I don't look as much like a corpse as usual in this one.

My favourites, as you might have guessed if you're a long time reader, are the red and the deep raspberry pink, and it's always a delight to have a long-wearing non-feathering formula in bright shades.  Application is the normal two-stage slight faff, the slightly dry pigment layer (which works best if you apply two extremely thin coats, rather than one thick one):

335 Just in Love

And then you follow this up with the glossy silicone layer:

335 Just in Love

Colours apply true to tube (this is one very thin layer - it would have been far more intense with two), and will last through tea, coffee, wind, rain, sunshine, and hail.  But not chips.  Never chips. The pigments in Lipfinity are oil-soluble, so chips, lard, cream cakes, mayonnaise etc will all eat through the colour and leave you with the red (pink/peach/coral) ring of doom if you're not careful.  Most cleansing oils and balms will get rid of them at the end of the day, but you might have to scrub a little with your facecloth to get the final stubborn remnants off.  Oh, and invest in a decent lip balm for nighttime, this will show up every fault on your lips, if you've neglected them. If you're a fan of Lipfinity already, then you'll love these colours.  If you're not ... well, there's nothing new here aside from the pigments.

Well played Max Factor!  Nice colours all, and it's great to have long-lasting colours at an affordable price, they cost £10.99 each at Boots, but there are always offers on ... Compare that to one Guerlain Rouge G, Tom Ford or Chantecaille Lip Chic (all in the £30+ bracket) and you have yourself a bargain.

What have you revisited recently?

The Fine Print: PR Samples.  Photos for this post were taken with a Nokia Lumia 1020 lent by Microsoft.  It's a phone, in case you were wondering.  with a bloody good camera.  I'll review it properly one day.  I haven't used my DSLR since it arrived, I'm *that* lazy.

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Vaseline Limited Edition No 3 - Paint the Town

Vaseline have introduced a brand new limited edition, and it's one I really like, it's RED!  This isn't really going to be a detailed review.  Pfeh, it's, you know, a tub of Vaseline.

It's not scented with anything, it's Vaseline with a hint of red pigment, and it is, apparently the very first tinted variety of lip product Vaseline have ever done.

To be fair, it's only very slightly tinted, but it is definitely a red rather than a pink, which is great.  You'll get just a hint of a tint though, and it won't last much longer than a Caramac thrown into a Slimming World meeting, but it's a nice edition from Vaseline all the same.  Handy for those "can't be bothered" days, I'll be taking this on my honeymoon next month ...

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Guerlain Christmas 2013 - Rouge G in Provocative.

All this week I'm featuring the "Crazy Paris" collection from Guerlain this Christmas.  Yesterday, I featured the Sulfurous nail polish and UV topcoat, and today it's the turn of the Rouge G from the collection, in Provocative.

I mentioned last week that I love a Rouge G (or seven),  and this one is no disappointment either.  Given a black coat of glossy lacquer, and with a neon pink button, I think this might be my favourite packaging of the entire collection.  It's reminiscent of the summer collection from a couple of years ago, but those had a silver button rather than pink.  So, what's inside?

A glorious pink.  Pink took over as my favourite lipstick shade a good while ago, and this is a great medium pink.  Highly saturated in shade, but neither too cool or warm, it's a good, extremely versatile colour that I think would suit all manner of skintones (I'd love to see this on some very dark or deeply tanned skins).  I'm still currently sporting my winter shade of pale blue, owing to trialling a number of factor 50 suncreams recently, and I like the contrast between the pale skin and bright lipstick, as you can see below.

You can see the skin on my hands makes the colour seem a little bluer than it will look on darker skins, but on my rather pigmented lips, it's not quite so cool, and pulls more neutral. It very definitely isn't a "hot" pink, however.

It has the same great Rouge G formula, being soft and moisturising, and rather featherlight in wear.  The lasting power is average, reaching 4-6 hours, depending on what you eat and drink whilst wearing it.

It'll be £36 pounds (yowch!) and launches November 1st. 

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Lipsticks of the Week: Soft Reds

  

It's been a red kind of week, but I couldn't face my usual bright "in your face" kind of shades, so softer, gentler, easier-wearing kinds of reds (and a pink) have dominated my look this week:

From left to right we have:

Revlon Colourburst Lip Butter in Red Velvet - I've largely ignored the Revlon Lip Butter hype, as the colours have all been too pale and milky for me up till now.  This is a gorgeous soft red, easy to wear, and comfortable on the lips.  It's about the only shade from the range I'd wear though.
Lanolips Apples - You might remember this from my post last week.  Please don't stand on your lanolips tubes, peeps.  This is a conditioning balm, and I own the full set of colours, I'm a bit of a Lanolips addict.  This is the brightest of the lot, I think.
Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Lipstain in Romantic - hate the taste, love the shade

Jouer Tinted Lip Enhancer in Shiraz - This is another conditioning balm with a hint of colour, it has a slighly floral taste, but leaves my lips in great re-hydrated condition, it's a really lovely shade, too.
Clinique Chubby Stick Intense in Plushest Punch - It's pink.  I know.  But it's gorgeous. Shut up.
Lipstick Queen Saint in Wine - Possibly my most-used lipstick of the year so far.  Gives the lips a gorgeous blood-red stain.  Love it.
Clarins Instant Smooth Crystal Lip Gel in Crystal Plum - Not sure this is blue enough to be a real "plum" shade, but it's a soft sheer, clear red on the lips, with a highly fruity scent that is extremely reminiscent of Lancome Juicy tubes.

Swatches (in same order as above):

Whilst I can classify all of these (except Plushest Punch) as a soft red, you can see some of the differences quite clearly here: Red Velvet is a slightly deeper red with hints of blue, Apples is a sheer bright red, Romantic has more of an orange hue, and Shiraz definitely has hints of wine in there.  Plushest Punch is, well, pink! Wine appears browner on the skin, but the natural colour of your lips counteracts this, and it's definitely a red in wear, and Crystal Plum is definitely a sheer (and extremely glossy) red.

So, what've you been wearing this week?

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Lippie's Lust List #2 Clarins Instant Smooth Crystal Lip Balm

Seriously, how gorgeous are these?  Full review for you later on in the week, but just had to share this picture today!


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Boots Avert Electronic Cold Sore Machine

 

There has been a plague upon the House of Lippie this winter, a veritable plague of cold-sores.  If you follow me on Twitter at all, you'll know that barely a week has gone by for the last couple of months without me complaining about yet another crop of painful blisters.  Sorry about that by the way!  

Teal is simple THE colour for cold sores this season, dahlings

I've tried everything, Compeed cold sore plasters, Superdrug cold sore plasters (which are officially the most useless thing ever, by the way) Zovirax, and a couple of other bits besides!  I've been banned from taking all dietary supplements besides Vitamin D for a while (related to my kidney problems last year), so the options of zinc, or L-Lysine or other vitamins and minerals aren't really an option for me at present.

I've been aware of the Boots Avert Electronic Cold Sore Machine for a while, but have been put off purchasing by the high-seeming price of £35.99, and also not knowing whether it works or not.  But, after four months of almost-weekly sores, I reckon I've spent almost double that on "remedies" that, whilst killing some of the initial pain, weren't actually doing anything to prevent further breakouts.

So,after a twitter conversation with several people who swore by the Avert (I'm sorry, but continuing to type  Boots Avert Electronic Cold Sore Machine is hurting my fingers), including Sali Hughes, I was sold.  I ended up begging Boots for a machine, and here it is.  This isn't a review, as I've only had it a couple of days, but I'm currently using it to heal up a couple of old sores, and I'm planning to use it every few days as a preventative measure for the next couple of weeks, too.

The Avert uses a narrow band of infra-red light to boost the immune response to the "tingling" phase of a cold sore attack. You place the machine over the site of the tingle, press the button, and for three minutes the light does the rest.  It beeps to let you know the start and the finish, which is handy. Having had good results from light therapy previously, I have high hopes for this, and I  won't be leaving the house without it for a while! As I've had at least one sore a week for the last two months or so, I should know pretty soon if it's working, and I'll keep you posted - lots of you have been talking to me about this, since I posted it up on Instagram and Twitter, and I'm aware it's a pretty hefty initial investment, but I figure if it works, it'll be worth it.

I am slightly amused that if you buy your Avert online at the moment, Boots will give you a free tube of their coldsore cream to go with it though ...!

How do you deal with your cold sores?
 
The Fine Print: A much begged for sample. I'm not proud.  I'm scabby, and fed up with it, so sue me.

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Burts Bees Giant Lip Balm Tube

I love a good lip balm or two (or five, or ten, or twenty or so) and I was delighted when this giant tube of beeswax goodness turned up from Burts Bees recently, I may even have clapped my hands a little.  I'm a sad old ... person, sometimes.  But, there's something about the glee you get from an oversized version of a small product that's very happy-making.

This limited edition tube contains eight Burts Bees lip products:

  
All the products are beeswax based, but the different variations included in the tube are:

• Original Beeswax Lip Balm Tube
• Original Beeswax Lip Balm Tin
• Honey Lip Balm
• Nourishing Lip Balm with Mango Butter
• Replenishing Lip Balm with Pomegranate Oil
• Rejuvenating Lip Balm with Açaí Berry
• NEW Refreshing Lip Balm with Grapefruit
• NEW Ultra Conditioning Lip Balm with Kokum Butter
• NEW Ultra Moisturising Lip Treatment 

The tube retails for £24.99, which is a saving of around £8 on buying the products separately, and it's the most cheerful lipbalm this lip-obsessed blogger has ever seen. The lip balms are good too, I've used them on and off for years (I find the peppermint-scented tin is surprisingly good on your cuticles), and I always have at least one tube on the go.

Of course,  me being me, I've now filled the tube with the rest of my lipbalm collection. You know it made sense.  It'd make a great gift idea for the lip balm obsessive in your life too ...

The Fine Print: PR Sample. You will never know the struggle I've had not to simply repeat the Eddie Izzard "I'm all covered in BEEEEEEEEZZZ" routine here.
 
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