Lifesaving Lipstick?

Might seem a silly question, but some products can help save lives.  This lipstick is brought to us by All For Eve a brand new beauty brand who are donating all their profits to help fund research into gynaecological cancers.  So, not only will this lipstick help you look good, it will do good too. 

I'm posting this tonight, as I've been really pleased and delighted to see that All For Eve won FOUR (a record) CEW Beauty Awards earlier today, Best Beauty Brand,  Best New Bath and Body Product (for their body butter), Best Hand and Nail Product (for their hand cream) and Best Beauty Product for the lipstick I'm showing you right now, which was designed by Daniel Sandler.

And, what a beauty it really is, a blue-based red with wonderful staying power, it's moisturising and beautifully pigmented, and absolutely everyone I know who has one has raved about it.



Here are swatches on my hand, and my lips (as always, pictures are clickable to enlarge):

Other products in the range have been designed by Urban Retreat, Sophy Robson, and Swarovski, here's a little peek:

These products mean business, the people behind this project have worked hard to make these releases as good as they can possibly be (not, sadly, always the case when it comes to charity beauty products) and I think their four awards today show that beauty experts in this country think they've done a bang up job!

Support a charity, save a life.


All for Eve products will be released officially on Monday 26th April.  Will you be checking them out?

Highlighters that double as blushers

When I was featuring (some of) my highlighter stash recently, I mentioned that I owned a few that doubled up as blushers, and I thought I'd show you those too. If you've followed my makeovers in any great detail, then at least one of these will be very familiar to you!

This is my Physician's Formula Shimmer Strips in Natural Glow which I won in a giveaway over at London Beauty Review quite recently. on the peachy side of natural, this gives great glowy definition where you want it, and is great for pure highlighting when you just want sheen.  The swatch on the right shows all the shades swirled together, but the darker two strips at the bottom are ones that I've used very successfully as a blush shade too.

Bobbi Brown Shimmer Brick in Apricot.  This isn't one I use much, as I think it needs a bit of tan to make it work properly, so it's one I'm going to make massive amounts of use of this summer, being coral is massive this year!  It's the same quality as my BB Beige shimmer brick, which I never miss an opportunity to use, and I'm sure this one won't let me down either! It's a little more on the gold-y side than the Physicians Formula above, not too sure if that's visible in the pics.

Finally, what is probably my favourite highlighter of all time, Cargo Plant Love Illuminator in Wind.  A swirled (baked) mix of bronze and two shade s of pink, this is something that I find never fails to lighten and brighten even the dullest of complexions. Plus, mad packaging aside, it's also very pretty to look at.  Applied with a light hand, it gives a very pretty flush of colour to the cheeks, but you can also use it to give a sunkissed look, as in this makeover here.

Do you have any multi-purpose blushers and highlighters?  What are your favourites?

Makeover: Helen S

 Gosh, it's been a few weeks since I posted a makeover, I'm really sorry! I hope you'll all make Helen very welcome, she's a great friend of mine, and we've been makeup shopping A Lot over the years. Mainly because it took me a very long time to cure Helen of her frosted mauve lipstick fetish .... Here she is, all fresh-faced, and only slightly apprehensive about what the day is going to bring.

Helen popped along on Valentines Day for some chocolate, a girly gossip and a brand new look, we've worked on her "polished neutrals" for work before now, but this time Helen wanted something completely different and dramatic, suitable for a night out.  Having a look through both our makeup collections, we thought grey would be a great option to bring out the beautiful brown of Helen's eyes.  But, as always, before that, we started with the base, which in Helen's case was a mix of Bobbi Brown tinted moisturiser, and Mac Studio Fix powder:

Initially we had decided on Bourjois Liquid eyeshadow in Platinum Gris, but once it was on the skin, I realised that although it was certainly dramatic, it really wasn't dramatic in the right kind of way. So, immediately after applying it, we took it back off.

We replaced it with Benefit Creaseless Cream in Skinny Jeans, which has long been a favourite eyeshadow of mine, it's slightly more pewter, and as such tends to be a little more flattering on pale-olive skintones.

A dramatic evening look seems to demand lots of eyeliner, so we took the skinny jeans around the eye, and used a little black liner to define the top row of lashes.  Next stop, mascara:

We used Bourjois Ultra Care mascara - which is one of my all-time faves for makeovers -  and here we also added a pop of Bourjois Rose Coup de Foudre blush to Helen's cheekbones. Helen had never worn mascara before, but I'm reliably informed she's been out and bought one now!

 Breaking all my own rules (I wouldn't normally put pink with this look, but we were going for different) a slick of Lipstick Queen's 15 Minutes of Fame gloss in Minute 3 finishes off the look,and Helen's all ready to party!


















Here's the before and after:

Guerlain Summer Editions

Oh, I love Guerlain, I love how their powders are always delicately scented with violets, which somehow makes the products feel more genteel and otherworldly, ladylike, I guess. Speaking of ladylike, their summer editions are something rather special too:

 Bad beauty blogger alert - I'm a dingbat, and forgot to take off the plastic cover that protects the eyeshadows!  

Guerlain are famous for their bronzers, so I was interested to see that this is a summer collection that will work well even if you don't have a tan, and if you have cool tones-skin.  So many summer collections assume that we're all off to the Caribbean for a month ... here's a closer look at the shadows:

Pretty - and matte! - gorgeous peaches and taupes, with a sparkly brown added for defining.  The white rosette you can see isn't an overspray, it's actually the white shade from their Les Meteorites pearls, and it goes all the way to the bottom of the pan.  Swatches:

Swatched rather heavily here, so you can see the different colours. I've done a FotD which I'll show you soon, which has them rather more sheered out.  Shadows are buttery soft, and really very blendable, sadly, the swatches make them look a bit chalky (wasn't expecting them to be so pigmented when I stuck my fingers in!) but I think these colours are perfect for a Faye Dunaway/Brigitte Bardot-esque, sixties-style look too.


Here are the two KissKiss Baby balms which are being released two, one a coral (So hot right now! - Zoolander) and one a pink:

These are very sheer, and beautifully moisturising - I've been wearing the pink (top) every day since it arrived! They're very lovely for a sheer veil of colour, when you don't fancy full on lipstick.  SPF 10 too, which is nice.  Swatches:

This is a nice alternative take on the summer coral/tanned trend, what do you think?

Guerlain Summer editions will be released Nationwide on 5th June - Ombre Eclat Palette will cost £36 and the KissKiss Baby Balms will be £20.

The Small Print: Items in this post were clandestinely handed over in a tea-shop by the Guerlain PR people.  They forced me to eat cake, however, this has in no way affected my review of the items in question.  My opinions cannot be bought with sponge.

Lime Crime Launches in the UK

A picture paints a thousand words.  With that in mind here's an entire essay about Lime Crime:

(click to enlarge pics)

Lip swatches of My Beautiful Rocket, and D'Lilac are after the jump:

Duckface!

Okay, I promised yesterday that if this post got enough comments, I'd post the Duckface That Went Astray pic.  Well, here it is.

After the jump!

Zuneta Tuesday

It's Tuesday, so that means it's my last day blogging on Zuneta for a couple of weeks, please pop by and say hello!

Lippie rambles at Zuneta

Be lovely to see you, I've made a right idiot of myself this week, let's see what you think! ;)

Clarins Instant Sunlight Quad

I popped into Debenhams last week for some shampoo, and I got myself distracted by some of the new summer collections that have come out.  Clarins in particular, really caught my eye, and I really liked the look of this eyeshadow palette:

I'm always a sucker for a slinky silver compact - not entirely convinced about the suedette pochette, to be honest - but the contents of this one are lovely (first shot no flash, second shot with):

Looks to me like it'll be pretty versatile,  here's some finger swatches:

Do you have your eye on any of the summer collections?  What's caught your eye?

The Small Print: I bought this, with money.  I didn't get any shampoo.  I'm not fit to be let out in a shop alone.

Highlighters - Pressed Powders

Whoo, got here eventually!  Now, pressed powders are my favourite kind of highlighters, I just find them easier to apply, and they're more forgiving when you accidentally overapply.  first off, let's take a look at a highlighter I recently rediscovered as a result of my rummaging:

Trish McEvoy Blush Highlight: Oh, this is a pretty one.  Yes, it's a bit sparkly in the pan, but it applies very silkily (is that a word?), and it adds a very nice hint of colour to your cheekbones.  This one is especially good swirled over your blusher, or over a bronzer to bring it to life a little. Now I've rediscovered it, I'm going to use it more and more often.  I love the colours in my charger, and digging it back out has reminded me that there are a couple of slots free, and I'm thinking I might fill them with some more eyeshadows.  Trish McEvoy is a great brand - if you can avoid being sold the ENTIRE RANGE whenever you step near their counters - and I'll talk to you more about the rest of the things I have from her soon.

I've posted about this one before: YSL Y-Mail Palette.  Shall we play a game of spot the swatch?  It is there, I promise you, first one to tell me where it is gets a prize! Ironically, even though it hasn't photographed at all well, I do still like this one a lot, as you can tell from where the lettering has been wearing off! It's a subtle (if you avoid the glittery bit) brightening powder that just adds a hint of glow to your finished makeup, and stops your foundation looking too cake-y, in the same way a spritz of toner is meant to.  I don't do the toner thing, being a non-believer in it, and also, having a mild paranoia about spraying things on my face.  But yes, be wary of the glitter if you go for this one.

Saving what is probably my favourite for last: Bobbi Brown Shimmer Brick in Beige. I don't know if you can tell from the pic but this is one battered piece of kit!  Several of the strips have fallen out over the years (and it is several years old), have been pushed back in, it's been dropped - a lot - and it was used practically every day for about three years, as a highlighter and an eyeshadow (can't do that with a liquid illuminator, alas!), and it's still going strong.  I thought it wouldn't be versatile when I bought it, but I was very wrong - I remember thinking "Urgh, beige, how boring!"  at the time, but it's great on most skin-tones, and the addition of the more pinky-golden shades mean you can use the individual strips as brow, cheek or eye colours, should you want to.  Highly recommended.

I'm away this weekend, so there won't be any posts - sorry! - but I'll be back on Monday with some Illuminators that double up as blushers.  Have a wonderful weekend!

Great Customer Service?

Let's face it, sometimes beauty counters aren't places where we can particularly expect good customer service, are they?  From the pushy-pushy OFLs (Orange-Faced Ladies), to the OFLs who treat you like a criminal for daring to even look at their products, to the OFLs who just want to "warm you up a little",  and then there are the ones who just ignore you and chat amongst themselves, the ones who make you look like drag queens, the ones who want you to join them on the Orange side, the ones who recommend colours your granny wouldn't be seen dead in, and the ones who insist your colouring is warm when it's actually cool (and vice versa) they're all irritating.

But very little is more irritating than being sold a dud product (we've all done it, bought something to get away) and then not being able to return it once it's left the store.  Until I wised myself up, and learned to stand my ground, I bought more orange foundations and too-pink lipsticks  than I could count, and I was always, but always just stuck with the useless things.

Which is why this is a nice post to write because on Tuesday night I popped into Givenchy at Debenhams and bought a couple of their limited edition Parad'eyes  No5 Poetic Lavender (singularly misnamed, as it's black with gorgeous blue spangles in it) and No 9 Nude Impression (which is a nude shade, with white and gold spangles in it).  However, when I got home, I discovered I'd actually been given No 6 Pearl (I didn't know the names of the shades until, of course, AFTER I'd checked).  Now, this might not have been such a bad thing, but No 6 was pink.

Baby pink liquid liner.

Seriously, a lovely way to make yourself look like you have an eye infection, don't you think?  Unusable, if you ask me, plus I look like DEATH in pastels of any description anyway.  I was dreading taking it back.  Cosmetics companies are notoriously crap at accepting returns - even on unused, still in the shrink-wrap products - and I was expecting to be turned down flat.  I was very pleasantly surprised, the SA took the blame completely (remembering my purchase of the previous evening, to boot) and swapped the products over without a murmur, or accusation of being too pale, even once. I was, it has to be said, gobsmacked.

So thank you nameless - and shame on me, there - Givenchy counter assistant at Debenhams Oxford Street, your good service is much appreciated!

Swatches and a FotD will follow, the Parad'eyes liners are really gorgeous, even if the package is a bit ... well, stupid.