Ultimate Nars Lip Pencil Set

This summer's (Selfridges only) limited edition collection from Nars is a godsend for nude-lip lovers!  Billed as the "Ultimate Lip Pencil Set", the bright and lovely box contains three nude lip pencils in Stourhead, (satin formula) a lavender nude which is limited edition to this collection only, Biscayne Pink (satin formula), a browner pink, and Sex Machine (velvet matte formula) which is a more mauve nude:

And you also get a Nars-branded sharpener for the pencils.

Some long-time readers may remember that I'm not much of a nude-lip lover, but this is a cute set for anyone who is, having a range of pale lipshades, two of which aren't too scary.  The lavender pink of Stourhead however, on me, is one of the scariest lip colours ever.

Top to bottom: Stourhead, Biscayne Pink and Sex Machine.

 I do love the NARS Velvet Matte formula, owning quite a few pencils already, and the satin formula  has been a very nice discovery too, being shiny, but not too sheer, and feels quite moisturising in wear:

Top to bottom: bare lips, Stourhead, Biscayne Pink, and Sex Machine

 For my colouring however, both Stourhead and Biscayne Pink contain a bit too much white for me to be entirely comfortable wearing them, but Sex Machine is a pretty good (if pale) "my lips but better" shade.

It's a pretty collection, housed in a great and sturdy box, and if you like nudes, for £29 then this is a difficult collection to beat.  You can see more at: Selfridges Nars Ultimate Lip Pencil Set


The Fine Print: PR Sample


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Sephora Cream Lip Stains

I have a full-time job, I run two blogs, and I do volunteer work on a regular basis.  That said, I'm also a lazy bitch, so I like my makeup to last, and last well.  I've not met a lipstain that works so well as the Sephora Cream Lip Stains, whenever I'm in Paris, I make a beeline for them, and buy backups of my favourites, of which these are they.

Here we have 06 Forever Fuchsia an electric pink, 03 Strawberry Kissed a more delicate pinkish red, and 01 Always Red, which is the classic bright, bright red.

These are incredibly opaque, with total coverage, and are very matte in wear - if you're scared of bright colours, don't go near them.  They're not for the shy and retiring!

Forever Fuchsia

Strawberry Kissed

Of the three, Strawberry Kissed is my favourite, and I wear it on days I need to apply my makeup then just forget about it, because there isn't anything that will get this stuff off during a normal office day, unless you regularly spend your working hours applying donner kebab to your lips every 20 minutes or something ...

I've just noticed these are now half price on the US website, which makes me worry that these are about to be discontinued, so if you're tempted you might want to snap them up now, or start begging your US friends to send you some ...

The Fine Print: Purchases

The Even Finer Print: We're not featuring full fragrance reviews on Get Lippie at the moment owing to illness - please see The Parosmia Diaries for more.


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Revlon Colourburst Balms

I do love a balm that stains, and I've been meaning to compare the formula of the new(er) Matte and Lacquer balms for a while now.  Me being me, I picked out the brightest shades from each, Romantic in the original Balm Stain formula, alongside Striking in Matte Balm, and Enticing in Lacquer Balm.

Romantic is a softer strawberryish shade, whilst Striking has hints of orange, turning it a strong coral-colour, and Enticing is a cool blue-red that is a very clear shade.

My bare lips:

Wearing Romantic:

On me, this is a slightly glossy, very sheer colour, which would be very easy to wear as an "everyday" red, there is colour enough to make my lips look finished, but it's not opaque enough to scare the horses.  The dusty peppermint smell is still as bad as I remember from the originals though.

Wearing Striking:

The colour is beautiful, a slightly warmed cross between coral and tomato, the matte formula is great for opaque coverage, but doesn't feel as drying as a more traditional matte lipstick might.  I do find my lips are on the dry side after wearing this for a few hours though, but no more so than with any other Revlon lip product, to be honest.  Is it just me that finds every Revlon formula leads to dry lips at the end of the day?

And finally, Enticing:

Almost precisely mid way between the original formula and the matte balm, the lacquer balm has more pigment than the original, but is more glossy than the matte, as you would expect.  I did find that the increased slip in the formula led to the colour bleeding over the course of wear, which I found super-annoying, but it is a lovely, bright clear red shade that I like a lot, but I won't wear it without liner ever again, which rather defeats the object of these being a fool-proof and simple to use product!

I still don't like the smell of the products - ironically, it still reads as dusty peppermint even after my nose issues - but the matte balms in particular are likely to become a handbag staple.

Best of all, they're almost always on 3-4-2  in Boots, and at 7.99 each, they're a bit of a bargain.  I think my favourite of these three is Striking, which one's yours?

The Fine Print: Purchases

The Even Finer Print: We're not featuring full fragrance reviews on Get Lippie at the moment owing to illness - please see The Parosmia Diaries for more.


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Zelens Lip Enhancer and Lip Glaze in Rouge and Nude

I make no bones about my love of Zelens products. The fact is, expensive as they are, I've rarely been disappointed with anything I've tried from the range, and I was super-excited when I discovered Dr Lens was releasing makeup to go alongside his skincare range.  I've mentioned the foundation in passing before, but today I want to concentrate on the lip products.

Here we have two lipglazes, in Rouge (red) and "Nude", and the Lip Enhancer, which is essentially a lip balm with a PH sensitive pigment that reacts to the acidity in your skin to create your "ideal" lip colour.

But the Lip Glazes are what I really want to talk about (the Lip Enhancer is a bit of a gimmick to be honest, and I don't think it's worth £32 of your money for the same fluorescent pink lips you get from every other PH-sensitive "ideal" lip colour on the market, but it's a nice balm that aside) for they are fabulous.

Yes, they are a little on the sticky side, but what you have here is incredibly nourishing, cushiony colour product.  Handy for just chucking on in a hurry, not needing a precise application, I've even used them as a treatment on sore lips, and I've found that they are nothing short of magical on dry, peeling lips.  There is no scent to speak of, which is a relief.  They last about as long as you'd expect a lipgloss to, but the hydrating and conditioning properties last much longer than the colour does, which is lovely.  They feel more like a treatment than a gloss, and as such, they're gorgeous.  They're currently challenging Chantecaille as my all-time favourite formula of all-time ... which is saying something!

On the lips, the colour is sheer, but not unpigmented, here are my bare lips for comparison:

And here they are with Nude:

And with Rouge:

And finally with Lip Perfector:

Normally, Lip Perfector goes incredibly fuchsia on me, but this was after an hour of swatching 14 lip colours so I think my lips were too knackered to make it work properly on me today.

Rouge is a lovely bright and sheer red, which I love for simple look with a sweep of graphic liquid liner, and I pair nude (an unusual choice of colour at all for me, but the mix of mauve, taupe and a hint of purple in the tube makes it an easier wear for me than the usual beige/caramel "nudes") with a smokier eye look. Lip Enhancer I wear on the days I can't be bothered with makeup at all ...  I'm a big fan of the Lip Glazes, loving their emollient and soothing properties, and the colours are pretty and flattering, I can't recommend them highly enough.  The Lip Enhancer is a lovely balm with a gimmicky colour, so buy it if you like that kind of thing, but unlike the Lip Glazes, it's not quite as much of an essential.

Lip Glazes are £29 each, and are available from SpaceNK.  Lip Perfector is £32.

The Fine Print: Mixture of PR samples and personal purchases.

The Even Finer Print: We're not featuring full fragrance reviews on Get Lippie at the moment owing to illness - please see The Parosmia Diaries for more.


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New Year, Old Me

By Tindara:

Happy New Year! If you’re anything like me you will be utterly bored with all the "New Year New Me" nonsense and be wanting to shove anything "detoxing" up the jacksie with a rolling pin. At least, I think that’s what they’re recommending; I tend to switch off after someone mentions a detox. Instead, I’ve decided to do the exact opposite and track down some of my old, and hopefully classic, beauty and fragrance favourites; Thierry Mugler’s Angel,  Mac Spice lip pencil, and Chanel’s Rouge Noir.

I have been longing to try Angel again, ever since I realised it’s in the Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez top ten Classic Fragrances. I felt simultaneously very pleased with myself that it was my signature scent for years, and irritated that I had pretentiously let it go when it became ubiquitous and much copied. Well I started my first Angel day off in a haze of gourmand nostalgia, but after a couple of hours the spicier notes came through and I fell in love with it all over again, more than twenty years later. I had remembered it as a sweet but fresh fragrance with a certain something unusual about it. Maybe that was where I was at with my perfume appreciation at that stage; I certainly feel I have learnt a lot since, not least due to hanging around with other fumeheads and lippie-aficionados. 

This is an amazing scent – the fresh zesty peel notes that appear after the initial sweetness give way and turn into a deep spiciness with a hint of church incense and patchouli. It’s like wandering into a shop that sells crystals and tarot cards whilst wearing a diamond tiara. I suppose it’s no coincidence that I wore this in my grungiest years, but I was a rubbish grebo; my standard issue German army boots were contrasted with little black dresses and deep red lipstick. I always wanted that touch of glamour. Angel now feels elegant and sparkly but with an earthy depth that’s just perfect. I think it might be my new [old] favourite.

I'm sure you’re all familiar with Mac Spice and all its dupes. Like Angel, it was launched in the nineties and quickly gained cult status as the perfect nude shade. It’s a long time since I wore it, or even lip liner at all; I tend to just go straight for the bullet these days. In red, OBVS, as the children say. But the odd cool neutral has made it into my everyday routine so I thought I’d give it another go. Pixiwoo in particular are lip liner devotees and they inspired me to get back on point, so to speak. 

Unable to get hold of a Mac Spice when I needed it, though, I hunted out a Bourjois dupe recommended by them, Crayon Contour Des Lèvres in 12 Facétieuse. It is a perfect nude, and I’d forgotten how great a toffee coloured lip liner can be at giving you a brilliant bee-stung pout. I used to push the edge to the very limit, (not over though, never over…) filling from the outside in, then topping with some lip balm. More recently, I've been using Laura Mercier Lip Glacé in Blush on top, which looks great with a smudgy smoky eye. I've now resurrected the few lip liners I have and am using them more and more as a result. They’re really long lasting and I love the fact that you can use them as a stain of colour not having to reapply as much throughout the day.

I was so excited when I finally got hold of some Chanel Rouge Noir back in the day – I had to go on a waiting list for it. Crazy, but we all wanted the shade that Uma Thurman wore in Pulp Fiction. I had to have it. It also reminded me of Shirley MacLaine in the 1988 film Madame Sousatzka. I was a strange teenager; there was something about the strands of beads, short dark nails and beautiful decorative fabrics in her costume that I adored. So as soon as the short dark nail thing happened I was there, and I don’t think it’s ever really gone away for me. 

I haven’t worn actual Rouge Noir for years though, until my friend got me some as a present a few months back. I still really love the rich bloody-black sheen of it, I couldn't stop looking at my hands. I feel like it goes with anything too, hold it against denim or black lace and it will look fantastic. It is straight up elegance with a touch of bohemian gothic and suits everyone in my opinion. My old [young] self wasn't so bad really; quite a stylish girl. 

What are your old favourites?

The Fine Print: Angel starts at £48, Mac Lip Pencils are £12.50, Bourjois Crayon Contour Des Lèvres are £5.49, Chanel Rouge Nail Polish is £18. All were bought by me, except the Chanel Rouge Noir which was gift from a friend.

The Even Finer Print: We're not featuring full fragrance reviews on Get Lippie at the moment owing to illness - please see The Parosmia Diaries for more.


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Guerlain Christmas 2014 - Gloss d’Enfer in Rouge Parade & L’oiseau de Feu

Alongside the Rouge G in Rouge Parade, and topcoat for nails in L'Oiseau de Feau, Guerlain have also released matching Gloss d'Enfers for Christmas.  The Gloss d'Enfers are hugely pigmented glosses, almost liquid lipsticks traditionally, so it's interesting to see a clear gloss in the formulation too,

Here you can see that Rouge Parade is an opaque bright fire-engine red, and L'Oiseau de Feu is clear gloss with a shimmering golden micro-sparkle whirled within.  L'Oiseau de Feu, like its namesake nail polish is intended for use as a top-coat for coloured lipsticks.

However, on swatching, we can see that the golden shimmer (being rather sparse, and very, very micro) of L'Oiseau is ... disappointing, so I tried it from another angle:

I couldn't see it on my lips either, so I gave up trying to photograph it.  A shame really, as it really was a clever way to incorporate both the yellow gold and lacquered red theme of the Coque D'or collection into the glosses,

Rouge Parade is a nice copy of the same Rouge G shade in gloss format, however.  If the Rouge G doesn't float your boat (what are you, dead?) then the Gloss d'Enfer, being lighter (and, of course, somewhat cheaper), might do the trick ...

The Fine Print: Products featured this week are a mixture of stuff I've bought myself, and items I was sent by the PR.

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Guerlain Christmas 2014 - Rouge G "Rouge Parade"

I absolutely cannot resist a limited edition Rouge G. I've tried.  I swear I have, but every new collection, another one comes out, and bingo! My handbag gets ever heavier ...

This year's Christmas Rouge G is ... perfect.  Coated in glossy red lacquer, this is a gloriously bright and seasonally appropriate shade of poinsetta-red.

I think I got a bit carried away taking pictures of the untouched bullet, but there you go.  This is a striking, London-bus red shade, but it's the sort of red you can wear with literally no other makeup on your face and instantly look polished and pulled together.  That's the joy of red lipstick, they do all the hard work for you!

It's the usual Rouge G formula of intense pigmentation, a slightly glossy and deeply comfortable to wear lipstick, but this one is so pigmented, you do need a liner (as you'll no doubt be able to tell from the lip swatch below:

Don't be like me, line your lips first - in my defence I was chasing the light on Sunday afternoon to get these pictures taken, but I'll update instagram soon.

And, just because I can't resist:

All the pretty.  ALL the pretty ...

The Fine Print: This week is a mixture of purchases and PR samples.

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ByTerry Rose Infernal Collection: Eye Powder-Kajal, Rose de Rose, and Baume de Rose Fig Fiction

It's too darn hot right now, and when that happens, my mind always starts to think wistfully about cooler seasons, I'm not a happy summer bunny, alas.  Not to mention that I always prefer the Autumn and Winter makeup collections to the ubiquitous summer bronze (with a splash of "unexpected" blue) that we've been seeing all summer every summer since, well, time began.

ByTerry is one of my favourite brands, and this micro-collection of makeup staples (the wider collection has two fragrances and some really lovely skincare, which I'll tell you about another time) is a lovely one:

Yeah, 'scuse the finger marks, I couldn't wait to try the lipbalm.  Sorry!  Not sorry.

Consisting of a triple-shade blush in Rose Infernal, a powder eyeliner in Oriental Black, and for the first time the iconic lip balm, Baume de Rose comes in colour! There are six shades, and this is number 5 Fig Fiction.

The Rose de Rose contains three shades, a pink-coral, a salmon-peach, and a pearly pink highlight.  It comes complete with a small brush, and a good-sized embossed mirror.  It does kick up a lot of dust on application, but it's really nice - pinker than you'd expect - colour on the skin:

This has been applied with a heavy hand to get the colour to show up in pictures, but a lighter application leaves you with a sheer pink rosy glow that looks almost lit from within.  The different colours are probably too small to be able to get to the individual shades with the average blusher brush, but the pan is a great size for swirling. The powder smells divinely of roses, as does almost everything in this collection.

I do love a powder eyeliner, I own an entire set of the Guerlain loose kohls for example, and this is a good one.  The tip of the applicator is actually a sponge, which is really handy, as it adds a bit of flexibility to the application process - Boots No7 did a limited powder liner with this kind of tip a few years ago, I've always wondered why they didn't bring it back to be honest - and with a black this black (for it is indeed very black.  Indeed) you're going to need all the help you can get when you're putting it on:

It blends out easily, and a little goes a long, long way, so if you want to do a soft but intense smokey eye, this is great.  You can see from the swatch above that there is not much grey in the formulation, so you're not going to end up with a wan, pale grey smokey eye here.  You will get a lot of fall-out with this - it is the nature of the beast with eyeliners of this nature, to be honest, there's no avoiding it - so I suggest you do your eyes first and then do the rest of your make up, and especially your base, afterwards.  It lasts and lasts, particularly on the waterline, and barely fades at all.  I've not noticed any staining, but this is a great BLACK liner.

I'm not a massive fan of the original Baume de Rose, to be honest.  It's actually a great balm, and has a really nourishing formulation, but the milky film of colour it leaves on the lips is, for me, a killer.  With that in mind, I may have given a tiny whoop of delight when I saw the six new shades of Baume de Rose recently.  This is Fig Fiction, a sheer and easily wearable plum colour.

Anything that isn't milky on the lips is a winner for me, and the sheer but not unpigmented colour is great.  With the same gorgeous rosey scent as the original, this feels nourishing and cushiony on the lips, but it IS a balm, and therefore won't last very long.  It's a pleasure to reapply (even though it does come in a pot, a particular bugbear of mine), so this shouldn't be too much of a hardship.

The ByTerry Rose Infernal collection will be instore from September (the blush costs £72, and the eyeliner will cost £29) but the coloured Baume de Rose collection is in SpaceNK now, and they cost £35 each.  I'll be picking up Cherry Bomb and Bloom Berry come payday ...

The Fine Print: PR Samples

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