Cabrini Studded Leather Jacket from Navabi (A tale of intense nervousness and the BBC)

"Just wear whatever you feel most comfortable in!"  

Was there ever a sentence designed to fill a fat lass with such dread?  I heard it from the producer of a BBC2 TV programme I'd been invited to take part in, and, well, the thought of making my national telly debut in a decades old pair of Coca Cola-themed pyjamas and a lightly Doritos-stained Motley Crue hoody didn't really appeal, if I'm being honest*. Particularly not when the TV show in question is a serious scientific documentary about my anosmia and parosmia problems over the last couple of years, anyway.  So for several weeks in September, I was in a serious tailspin over what to wear for making a documentary, I have NOTHING to wear!

Actually, not quite true, I have lots of clothes, and I scrub up quite well (for an accountant), but I wouldn't say I really had style, unless "cardigan chic" is the topic in question, that is.  As some of the filming was to take place on Shepherd's Bush market (and you haven't lived until someone calls you a wanker on film when you're trying to talk about your trials with potatoes whilst walking backwards through a market, let me tell you) I knew a coat would be necessary, but in September a winter coat would have been too much and my rain coats were all designed with thinner people in mind (that thinner person being me, two summers ago, but hey ho).  I harboured idle thoughts about a purple coat from Joe Brown for about two minutes before the idea of a leather jacket popped into my head and I remembered about Navabi.

Navabi, if you don't know, is a supplier of designer clothes for the more generously proportioned amongst us. I discovered it quite by accident last winter, and went a bit bonkers buying faux-leather trimmed skirts and dresses by the score ("Leather dresses!  For big girls! Wheeeeee!" went my brain), then I went on a total clothes no-buy for the summer, because I was busy buying furniture instead.  I love Navabi (and no, they're not paying me for this blog post) because unlike SOME plus-size clothing suppliers they don't a) feature celebrity "designed" ranges b) don't cover absolutely everything in sequinned appliqué butterflies and c) don't feature "celebrity" "designed" ranges covered in appliquéd sequinned butterflies.  Whilst I'm all for appropriate sequinnage - yes, I do wear them to the office, more regularly than you might think, actually - butterflies and applique can get stuffed, frankly.  I also love it because it's proper designer-wear (sometimes with prices to match), and whilst there are the occasional potato-sack-style couple of items, they're deliberately done so, and not your only option if you're above a size 14, unlike some websites. Whatever your style, and whatever your budget, and whatever the occasion (and your size), there's something you can wear.  I have a selection of their shift dresses and long jumpers from last winter, and the styles are both classic and timeless. A trawl through the website is always a treat - even for me, a confirmed clothes and shoe-shopping hater.  Oh yes, I went there.  Not even slightly sorry.

Anyway, where was I?  I spotted this Cabrini studded leather jacket, and I fell, completely, utterly head over heels in love.  A biker style, but so much more feminine (and flattering) than that, it had to be mine. HAD TO! And, luckily for me, Navabi were incredibly generous on hearing about my "plight" (such as it was, I know, I know) and agreed to send me a sample for the filming.  I haven't worn any other coat since it arrived, and, after a couple of years without a leather jacket in my wardrobe, I'm wondering how the heck I managed without one.  You know when an item of clothing turns up, you put it on, and it feels so completely like "you", you never want to be parted from it again?  Well, that's this jacket for me.  "Wear whatever you feel most comfortable in"?  No problem.  Thank you so much, Navabi!  You can find the jacket (and much, much more!) here: https://www.navabi.co.uk/product/studded-leather-jacket-36989/?colorcode=2400 (not an affiliate link) It's buttery soft, comfortable, and aside from the studs being brass rather than the silver I'd expected, is exactly as advertised.

Me (sadly, sans jacket) with Sarah McCartney and the BBC Scotland production team

I'll talk more about the filming nearer the time of broadcast (providing, of course, that my section makes the cut!), but it was a huge amount of fun being a telly "presenter" for the first (and, no doubt, last) time, and, as well as being grateful to Navabi for solving my clothing woes, I'm also indebted a huge amount to the wonderful Sarah McCartney at 4160Tuesdays and the gorgeous Linda Pilkington of Ormonde Jayne, without either of whom the filming probably wouldn't have happened. 

Me in the jacket of joy - I had flu when this pic was taken
though, so please don't enlarge it, you won't thank me.

 I just have to save up BIG TIME for my next Navabi spree now ...


* And if you think I'm not wearing them RIGHT NOW as I type this, you'd be sadly mistaken, I'm afraid.
 
The Fine Print: PR sample.



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Finishing Touches: #LipsNspritz of the Week, June 12 2016

Summer's coming!  Summer's coming!  Well, hopefully it is, anyway!  My tastes have certainly turned to the more summery this week, anyway.  I started with Caron's My Lang (which gave me and my husband a Woody Guthrie ear worm for several days), which is a sophisticated and creamy sun-lotion kind of a scent, which I really liked from first sniff. More about this soon.  I'm also LOVING the new Burts Bees lip crayons, this one in Napa Valley is a beautiful deep blood-red with great lasting power.

On Tuesday I wore Guerlain Terracotta, only to have it pour down raining all day.  Irony.  Again, another sun-lotion kind of fragrance, this one heavier on the jasmine, with an oilier kind of side to it, it's beyond gorgeous.  I wore it with one of Guerlain's new La Petite Robe Noir lipsticks, which smell of cherry blossom and black tea.  Nice shade, but scented lips are a little distracting, I think.   

On  Wednesday I wore what might be two of my favourite launches of the year so far, Diptyque Eau de Sens and Chanel Rouge Coco Stylo in Roman.  Eau de Sens is a gorgeous, waxy and fleshy orange blossom that has been rounded out with juniper and patchouli, it's fun and beautiful, and a delight to wear, I can't resist it, and it's a fragrance I crave almost daily.  Which is tough when you're trying to wear a different perfume every day!  The Rouge Coco stylos are gorgeous, and the first Chanel purchase I've gone out of my way to pick up in what must be a couple of years now.  They're shiny and cushiony, and beautifully pigmented.  I'm going to need backups of both of these.

Thursday I wore Hermes Pamplemousse Rose, which is a refreshing and light, almost sugary take on pink grapefruit, lacking the sulphurous air that can make things like Guerlain's Pamplemousse in the Aqua Allegorica a little difficult to wear. I paired it up with the almost neon-pink of Revlon's Barcelona Nights, which is a long time favourite. 

And on Friday (my birthday!) I wore the amazing Rose Gold from Ormonde Jayne, which is the companion piece to Black Gold which, in a tiny twist of fate, was released on my birthday two years ago.  I'm going to need a couple more wears to allow my nose to pick it apart, but so far it appears a worthy follow-up. I'll do a joint review of both of these fragrances soon, Black Gold is probably one of the most commented on fragrances in my collection, and I love it an unhealthy amount.  Just so you know.  I wore Rose Gold with my Louboutin lipstick in Survivita.  Love the colour, like the formula, completely underwhelmed with the hype, the price and the packaging.

And finally, in super-exciting news, later this month Frederic Malle launch body products (shower gel and body lotion) in the Cologne Indelible fragrance.  Cologne Indelible is a juicy and fresh cut-orange fragrance, replete with orange blossom, and cut through with a bright lemon and green herb facet which I adore an unhealthy amount.  The best thing about Cologne Indelible though is that is is a juicy citrus that lasts and lasts, which is hugely unusual for a citrus scent.  I've used these every day this week for layering purposes, as they're really zesty and refreshing.  I must pick myself up a full bottle of Cologne Indelible though, one day ...

And what have you been wearing? 


 The Fine Print: PR samples and purchases


This post: Finishing Touches: #LipsNspritz of the Week, June 12 2016 originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Ormonde Jayne Vanille D'Iris

At Linda Pilkington's tiny jewel-box of an Ormonde Jayne salon in Bond Street last week, Vanille D'Iris was launched.  Expecting an over-sweetened custard-and-carrot melange from the name of the new addition to the core range (the first in a couple of years), I was extremely impressed with what I did find.

At first sniff, Vanille D'Iris is dry and almost spicy, there is pink pepper and bergamot in the mix, and the first "whoosh" into the nose has a sparkling, almost effervescent effect.  Once the peppery citrus has died down, the iris pushes through and makes itself known.  Iris can be powdery-soft and reminiscent of lipstick and facepowder, but the iris in Vanille D'Iris is assertive and buttery-rich with just a hint of damp brown earth and juicy white roots.  I often get a whiff of carrots with iris-based fragrances and Vanille D'Iris is no exception to that, but here it's a sophisticated butter-braised carrot with the merest hint of caraway-spice to lift the whole composition from the kitchen to the drawing room.

I'm surprised at the subtlety of the vanilla in the composition, it's darkest bourbon vanilla, complete with the seeds to my nose rather than the sugary custard trifle I was expecting.  For me the vanilla doesn't turn up until we're right into the drydown, and even then it is muffled by the amber and woods that round out the formula.  It's there for depth, not for sweetness, and as such, it's a massive relief.  Too much sugar would have made this a migraine, but as it stands it's dry and sophisticated and rich. Most enjoyable!

Ormonde Jayne Vanille D'Iris is grown up and lady like, poised and polished.  One day I shall be groomed enough to do it justice, it's no jeans and t-shirt kind of a fragrance, it demands a lipstick and properly brushed hair.  A worthy, and not too sweet addition to the core Ormonde Jayne line, it demands your attention in a ladylike way.

Ormonde Jayne Vanille D'Iris will be released mid-September and will cost £90.

The Fine Print: PR Sample


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Ormonde Jayne Etoile Candle

Housed in a handsome, but unexpectedly brown glass jar, the Ormonde Jayne Christmas candle this year is a creamy-smooth blend of cardamom, amber and tonka.  Slightly spicy, with a hint of smoke, Etoile is a gorgeously grown-up scent for Christmas.

It is smooth-burning, and comes with an incredibly high percentage of perfume oils in the formula, so this is one candle this will make your whole house smell good even after a relatively short burn.   It costs £68, and smells almost good enough to eat.

The Fine Print: PR Sample

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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Perfume Portrait at Ormonde Jayne

I've had some astonishing invitations through this blog, but being invited along to Ormonde Jayne to meet Linda Pilkington and have a chat about perfume has been one of my favourites.  Linda has been the brains and inspiration behind Ormonde Jayne for ten years, and has produced some of the most highly praised scents in the world during that time.


I popped along to her new store in London's Sloane Square one lunchbreak last week, and sat for a "perfume portrait" with the lady herself.  Open to everyone, the portrait aims to pick out the scents that will best suit you from the Ormonde Jayne range, according to how well you like (or dislike) particular scents.  It starts with a few questions about perfumes you love, mine were Clinique Aromatics Elixir, Chanel Crystalle, Guerlain Herba Fresca and O de Lancome. Then you have to move onto perfumes you dislike, which in my case were LouLou (it makes me vomit) and Eden (ditto).  Many, many apologies to Cacherel there, but ... well, they do.

Then the most interesting part, Linda guides you through smelling 21 raw ingredients (divided into seven different categories) and asks you if you like them or not.  There are no right or wrong answers, but I liked many of the ingredients, apart from Tiare and Tonka.  I suspect that it is (tiare in particular) those two pesky little ingredients that are behind my intolerance to particular perfumes.  I think Linda was surprised by some of my reactions, she let slip that she'd thought I'd be a great candidate for Tolu, but I hated all the ingredients!


At the end of this, Linda asks a few more questions, along the lines of particular habits you might have, any preferences, and picks out a few scents from her range.  There are 12 perfumes in the line, and Linda selected three for me to try, Champaca, Osmanthus and Zizan.  All extremely different to one another!  Champaca is a "deconstructed" floral with hints of rice and bamboo, Osmanthus is a zesty citrus floral, and Zizan is a masculine vetiver-based fragrance.

I have to say, I liked them all, but the one that really called out to me was Zizan.  For years I've preferred men's fragrances to women's, finding them both better lasting and - to my nose - more interesting than many women's fragrances.  That said, it was interesting to have it confirmed in a blind smell-test!  

I love the scent of Zizan, it reminds me (in a good way) of Acqua di Parma.  Not in the way that it smells - they're not really alike at all - but both scents remind me of the warm smell of a man you know well, intimate, and a tad sexy.   It's a proper, old-school scent, something that if I smelled it on a man would make me swoon a little, but on my skin it's a warm, grapefruity (vetiver always heads towards grapefruit on me, albeit without the sulphurous undertones), lightly smoky and wonderfully playful scent that I can see myself wearing year round.  I suspect MrLippie would smell magnificent in it, but as of yet, I'm refusing to relinquish MY  bottle.  

As for Osmanthus, I was a little unsure at first, but over the hours that it developed, I fell in love with it more and more, and have an inkling that a purchase might be in order.  In fact, I'm tempted to go back and buy the discovery kit, as I suspect that I'll like a LOT of this range once I try them properly.  I think I really do have try Champaca as well ... But Tolu may well be a complete no-no for this particular blogger.

The Sloane Street store is a delight of black laquer with tangerine accents, and the friendly and delightfully knowledgeable staff are a real treat to chat with.  Linda herself was wonderfully chatty, and I have to admit that if I had more time, I'd have been perfectly happy to spend the entire afternoon at the store.  

Perfume Portraits are free, and depending on the time available will take from 6 minutes to an hour - mine took 40 minutes, but we got distracted talking about jacuzzis for a while.  You know, like you do ...  There's also a wonderful service where you can book out the store and take five of your friends along for a glass of champagne and a perfume portrait each.  Who's with me?

As far as my Project Perfume is concerned, the visit was a complete bust, as I wasn't "matched" to any of the perfumes on my list, but I think the visit was all the better for not being tied to smelling particular items.  Many thanks to Linda and her team for making me so welcome last week, it was a delight, and I'll be back.


You can find out more about Ormonde Jayne here.


The Fine Print: Get Lippie was a guest of Ormonde Jayne, and a perfume sample was provided for the purposes of this article.  However, the service itself is free to all visitors to the store. Pop along, you'll surprise yoursel!  As always, links in this article are for informational purposes only, and are not affiliate links.

This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.