Guest Review: Tara Smith Feed The Root Shampoo and Conditioner

It's been a while since I had a guest-reviewer on board (why yes, MrL, that is a hint!), so I thought I'd let Sarah take over for the day today.  She's been raving about this shampoo range for a little while, and her she is spreading the joy:



Given that Smith is (allegedly) one of the commonest surnames in the English-speaking world, hairdressers called Smith are particularly rare. Maybe they're told, after they've spent their first day sweeping away cuttings, making tea and learning to make small talk about holidays: "Sorry lovey, but Smith just doesn't say 'Stylist' to me. You'll need to get married or do something drastic to the spelling, my love. Maybe add an extra letter?"

Tara Smith is a brave exception. You can imagine her tossing her perfectly-formed mane defiantly as she folded the towels and vowing that one day, she too would be a vibrant, innovative and respected Stylist to the Stars and yet stay true to her roots and stay a Smith. With an "i". Twelvty years later she has snipped and demiwaved her way to the glittering salons of Hollywood, and now she is ready to join the ranks of the Sassoons and the Friedas with her own range of organic, cruelty-free, locally-produced haircare products. And I bet no-one calls her Smitty...

So, on to the review:

The product

The main attraction for me was the absence of foaming and stuff like parabens, sodium laureth sulphate and something called phthalates. The blurb on the back says "Tested on Film Stars, not Animals" - but it doesn't say which film stars were strapped into a harness and had shampoo dripped into their eyeballs, but I enjoyed making a list of potential testees.
Smith gets extra brownie points for natural, earth-friendly ingredients and local manufacture (well, Sussex is fairly local...). 

Her products also carry certification from the Vegan Society. The shampoo contains five yeast extracts and extract of bamboo, plus tea-tree oil and mint. The conditioner has something called Squalane which is derived from avocado and olive oil. Combined with more yeast extracts and marine algae, the conditioner claims to provide with essential minerals and bind moisture to the hair shaft. Both shampoo and conditioners come in circular 250ml bottles that fit very nicely on the edge of the bath.

To use the shampoo, rub a good-sized squidge into wet hair and leave in for a few minutes. The shampoo is suitably rich-textured and smells deliciously minty, like an After Eight. After about 30 seconds your scalp begins to tingle slightly. This, apparently, is the shampoo At Work, according to the label. With no parabens or foaming agents, there isn't much in the way of lather, but it rinses out easily anyway. The label recommends a second shampoo, but I don't think that makes much of a difference, other than more bubbles the second time around.
 
Squeeze-dry your hair and apply the conditioner in the usual way. The conditioner felt quite light, compared with similar products, but it smelled utterly delicious and worked easily into the hair, leaving no icky residue on your hands. Again, you feel the minty tingle after a few seconds. Rinse out the conditioner after leaving it in for five minutes and style as usual.

After the wash and condition my usually coarse, wiry (greying) hair actually felt quite silky. This doesn't usually happen unless I've applied half a tonne of Kiehls conditioning treatment and slept with my head in a plastic bag. To be on the safe side, I applied a small dollop of Tara Smith's base coat primer before blow-drying and tonging the hair into some semblance of normality. The primer helps to protect the hair from heat treatments, and it comes with a clever little all-in-one squishy pump. One pump is all you need for shortish hair with the texture and manageability of a moody Brillo pad.

So, given it's completely organic, vegan and made by magical elves in leafy Sussex, you'd expect the price to be something ridiculous, but no. Cult Beauty sells this shampoo and conditioner for a paltry £5.50 each. The primer costs £6.50 for 50ml. Half a bottle does for three months of twice-weekly washes on fairly short, thirsty hair, which means you can be green and gorgeous, and have a bit of change for that lovely All For Eve lippie...

Review - Benefit Girl Meets Pearl

I have a love-hate relationship with Benefit.  When the products are good (and very many of them are), they're very good, but when they're bad, they're dreadful.  Add in the hard sell at the counter, the freaky makeovers you get, and then look at the frankly rather limited range of foundation shades, they can be difficult to love at times .... also, please don't get me started on the cheap and rather undurable cardboard packaging that drives me nuts ... but hey.

But, when they get things right, they tend to get things really right.  Their Creaseless Cream eyeshadows are a work of genius and I never miss an opportunity to recommend them, and I've been using You Rebel ever since it was called "I am Rebel" (even if these days, I do prefer the "lite" version, I don't enjoy being orange now!).

They're bringing out some new products at the moment (and I hear exciting things about a possible skin-care launch in the near future too), and I've had a chance to try them.  I'll talk more about Porefessional soon,  but Girl Meets Pearl launches in the next couple of weeks and it's really very pretty indeed.

A cool pink with gold pearl, this is a cooling liquid highlighter that you can use to "spotlight" individual areas of your face, or use all over your face (under your foundation) to give your skin a sheeny glow. It's not a shimmer, or a glitter - thank goodness - but it just lights your skin up a little in a delightfully natural fashion.

Here you can see it on my skin, it's largely translucent, but it blends remarkably well, and gives you a buildable effect, you can apply it lightly for a light sheen, or apply more for a more glow-y effect.

Here you can see it catching the light whilst I was blending it in.  It dries a lot more matte though:

Can you see the difference?  I like to use this on my cheekbones (over a tinted moisturiser, and under a powder foundation), and I love the very subtle effect.

But, there is one dreadful thing about this product - the scent.  It's like smearing Hubba Bubba on your cheeks.  Not nice, and, to make things worse, the smell lingers a long time.  Your mileage on the scent may vary, of course!  I do find Benefit products a little over-perfumed at times, and I have to admit that this isn't nearly as bad as the smell of Dr Feelgood (which always smells like curry to me), but I thought you should know!

How do you get along with Benefit?

The Fine Print: I was visited on my sickbed by a very lovely Benefit PR recently, and she left me a sample of this.  PRs are people too, people! 

Nude Eyeliners

 Up until a couple of months ago, I didn't own a single "nude" eyeliner.  Having been tortured throughout the '80s by white eyeliner that was supposed to make you look more "awake" (but in reality just kind of made people look like they had been attacking their eyes with Tipp-Ex), I didn't really think there was anything you could realisitically use these pencils for.  I'd been reading a lot of love on blogs for Stila's Topaz, and when it came up on ModestyBrown's blog sale I bought it.

And now I own seven. <sigh> I'm not sure if it's a problem or not, to be honest.  I now have Une's Skin Glow, GOSH Go Bananas, Stila Topaz, Chanel Clair, Mally's double ended pencil, Laura Geller's I-Care pencil in Bone, and Guerlain's Secret Glow.

Did someone mention swatches?  Here you go:

Thoughts on each:

Une Skin Glow: This is actually meant to be a concealer, but I find it works marvellously well on the waterline, it's light and creamy, and lasts pretty well.  As it's meant to work on your skin to cover up blemishes, it works remarkably well on the waterline to disguise any redness.  A winner.

GOSH Go Bananas: This is actually a shimmering yellow.  Not actually that great as a nude liner, it's a little too yellow for that.  That said, this lasts astonishingly well, and won't actually disappear until you use a remover to take it off.  Great for highlighting around the tearduct rather than using on the waterline, if you ask me.

Stila Topaz:  Although this was the one that started off my collection, I have to say that it's very much not my favourite.  In fact, it's probably the worst liner on this list.  Why?  Well, it's very soft and creamy.  FAR too soft and creamy, in fact.  It's exceptionally easy to overapply (making it look like, well, ta bit like: Your eyes are leaking!! Leaking onto your face!!!  which isn't a great look outside of Halloween), and it can get onto your eyelashes a bit which just looks wrong, really.  Also, it's a little on the peach side, which means it's not a great match for most people's skin tone.

Chanel Clair:  Probably the hardest pencil on this list, it's very subtle, and all the better for it.  The firmness means you don't get the "ooziness" of the Stila, and the colour is very good too.

Mally: The second palest on this list, this gives a very similar effect to a while pencil.  If you're very, very pale, this might be a great choice for you.  It's a double ended pencil though, so means you don't get very much in there.  I'll be talking about the other half of this pencil next week ...

Laura Geller: Another hard pencil, this time in a shimmering ivory shade.  Possibly the prettiest pencil in the collection (and has a great built-in sharpener), alas, I can't get this one to show up on my waterline at all.  Such a shame!

Guerlain Secret Glow: A shimmering vanilla shade, this is glorious (and works well as a browbone highlighter too), being a powder, it's easy to overapply, and make yourself look a little odd, but I do love this one quite unreasonably.

Overall, the ones I'd buy again (and I did buy most of these myself) would be the Chanel and the Une.  What do you think?

The Story Behind All For Eve ...

I don't normally link to the Daily Mail from here, but there's an amazing, heartbreaking story on there today on the story behind the creation of the All for Eve brand that I've been a big supporter of this year.  It's an amazingly intimate interview with the inspiring Nemri Hammer, telling the story of her sister, Nadia, and her battle with cancer. It's well worth a read if you, or anyone you love has ever had their life affected by gynaecological cancer. 

Read it here.

I'll be talking about one of the All for Eve products later this week, in the meantime, you can find out more about The Eve Appeal here.

Blog Birthday Continued ...

PLEASE NOTE: The rules to this competition have changed, owing to a situation with A N Other website. A lot of entries have been disqualified as a result.  Sorry, but GENUINE followers only please.

So, this week is the anniversary of my blog, and, because I love you all SO much, I thought you might like a chance to win one of what I think is the greatest products I've discovered this year.  Which is, of course ...

A Clarisonic!

This is a full Clarisonic kit - as seen here and the prize in total is worth £150.  Oh, and it's pink ;) To be in with your chance to win, all you need to do is: 

Be a follower of this blog, then, finish the following sentence in 25 words or less (I'm an accountant, remember, and I will be counting): "My birthday wish for Get Lippie would be ..." and EMAIL your answer, alongside your name and address to birthdaycomp@getlippie.com.  

The Rules - (ignore at your peril):

Apologies for this list of rules, but owing to the value of the prize, I'm having to make the rules a little more stringent than usual, please read them carefully, and please play by the rules!

Entries made in the comments of this post will not be counted, and will be disregarded entirely. This is an EMAIL ONLY competition.

Similarly, entries received without a valid postal address will be disregarded. Also, only one entry per postal address, please.  

Please note that if you have found this giveaway as a result of posts on forums like MoneySavingExpert et al, then your entry will not be counted. There are ways I can check how you found this post!

This competition is open to UK residents only (many apologies to my international readers, I'll do a giveaway open to you guys soon, I promise!), 

You do need to be a follower to enter this competition, please ensure you tell me your follower-name in your entry. 

The judges decision is final.  I may use Random.org to find the winner, if need be.

 This competition will close at 12 noon (GMT) on Monday 20th September, and the Clarisonic will be despatched the same week.  Entries received after this date will be disregarded.

If the standard of entries is particularly high, I reserve the right to add in further prizes (not guaranteed) at my own discretion.

Good luck, I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

It's my Blog Birthday!

Time just flies, doesn't it?  I seriously cannot believe that an entire year has passed since I started blogging regularly!  I started this because a couple of friends had been nagging me too, and I'd always resisted because a) I didn't think I had anything to actually say, and b) didn't think anyone would want to read it anyway!  Well, an entire year of posting, and almost 150,000 page views later, I think it's fairly safe to say that I was wrong, on both counts ...

Blogging has brought me many things, including experiences from the sublime to the ridiculous (more about those later on this week), and I've met -  and made friends with - men and women I could never have met under other circumstances. Get Lippie has made a huge difference to my life, and as a result, I owe a massive debt of thanks to several people for all manner of reasons, and if you'll forgive my self indulgence (which I shall apologise for in advance), I'd like to mention some of them now.  Please get your sickbags ready:

To Seona, Sarah and Genna, thank you so much for encouraging me to start this in the first place, you guys have supported this from the very beginning and you have always had great ideas and feedback, even when I've found it difficult at times.  This blog probably wouldn't exist without you three, so, from the heart of my bottom I thank you very much.

For bloggers who I'm very grateful to, then I simply have to mention LondonMakeupGirl , MizzWorthy and Lipglossiping  who were my inspiration at the beginning (and remain so!) and I'm grateful to them for all the support they provided for me when I was but a struggling (and very annoying - some things never change) newbie to the blogging world.   BeautyJunkieLondon and HelenNiceThings need a mention for all the help they've given me since - you guys know what I'm talking about! Then there is, of course, BritishBeautyBlogger, who is a great cheerleader, and takes my ribbing her about sausages at every available opportunity with great aplomb. .And, lastly, but certainly not leastly (mainly because she's in a category all of her very own labelled "Mouthy Scousers"), there is Caroline over at BeautyMouth, whom I'd like to say I look up to, but I'm afraid she'll take it literally and start referring to me as a hobbit again.

I've made so many friends through Twitter, through the comments that arrive (always to my astonishment and delight) daily on this blog, and through emails and DMs and not to mention the blogging events that I never even thought I'd be invited to any of, that there are too many more of you to mention without it turning into some sort of sub-Gwyneth Paltrow-style Oscar speech.  And I think I've just embarrassed myself enough for one day.  Possibly even the week!

Suffice it to say, that if you've ever taken the time to read my tiny corner of the internet, or if you've ever spoken to me on Twitter, or if you've ever left a comment here, or written me an email asking for advice, then I'm grateful for it, and I'd like to say a massive thank you to YOU, too.  You're great you are.  And, might I add, how lovely you look today?

I'll be back a little later in the week with details of an amazing birthday competition.  Well, I think it's amazing, anyhow, I hope you guys will, too! In the meantime, if you have any suggestions of things you'd like to see on Get Lippie, then feel free to let me know in the comments!


The Fine Print:  Normal (sarcastic) service will be resumed tomorrow.  I did warn you that you'd need a sickbag.  I never joke about vomit.

A tiny note to MrLippie:  Thank you.  For everything. Now, PLEASE stop making me look socially inept when I drag you to events, thank you!

My Current Skin Care Routine

I've tried a lot of skincare this year - and I'll bring you some reviews of some of those brands soon, but I thought it would be nice to talk about what I'm using at the moment, as I'm really happy with it, and my skin is about as good as it's been in the last few years, so I thought people might like to know about it!

First of all, the Clarisonic.  I swear, this has been the single biggest difference I've made to my skin this year.  I, like many people, initially thought it was a bit of a gimmick, after all, it's essentially a giant toothbrush for your face!  But the difference it's made to my skin is amazing.  It's dealt with my troublesome forehead dry patch that I've been plagued with for years, and I've been able to use less product, and need to rely less on heavy foundations as a result.  Truly, the Clarisonic is a habit-changer, and I'm glad it's appeared in my life.  I use mine twice a day, and it's one of those products that you can really tell the difference if you've skipped a day.

A couple of months ago, I bought a collection of Alpha H products from QVC (it contains cleanser, moisturiser, eye cream, liquid gold and a mask - it's the five piece smoothing collection on this page here) and these have formed the basis of my routine ever since.  In particular, I'm a big fan of the balancing cleanser and the Liquid Gold itself.

In the morning, I use the Balancing Cleanser - alongside the Clarisonic, and I find it cooling and refreshing on my skin. I'm not, ordinarily, a fan of cream cleansers, but this doesn't leave any residue, and leaves my skin feeling clean and smooth.  There's no real scent to it, and I've had no breakouts whatsoever since I bought it. I have a massive 200ml tube which has lasted me two months so far and I estimate I'm about half way down it so far. However, I do not double cleanse, I find that on my (sensitive, and temperamental) skin, double cleansing is just a recipe for dryness and redness, personally.

I follow this with the Alpha H Age Delay Lip and Eye cream, and then I've been following it with Murad Active Radiance serum, which provides a massive vitamin C boost for the skin, and helps repair sun damage.  I like that is absorbs quickly, and it gives my skin a little tingle in the mornings when I use it.  I follow that with either Murad Sheer Lustre Day Moisture (SPF 15), if I'm planning to wear foundation that day, it's a nice, very light lotion that leaves my skin with a nice sheeny glow and provides a great base for some of the foundations I've been trialling recently. There's a golden sheen to it in the tube, which just adds a little radiance to my skin, and I like it a great deal.

If it's a day where I just want a tinted moisturiser, then I'll break out my tried and trusted Bobbi Brown Tinted Moisturising Balm in Light-to-medium. I love this product, and have been using it for at least five years now, it's pigmented enough to even out your skintone, but it's also, let's face it, a damn fine moisturiser. It's also one of the nicest smelling cosmetic products I own, I love the stuff, and this must be my fifth or even sixth jar now, it's a summer staple.

In the evenings, I once again cleanse with the Balancing Cleanser (or, if it's an OTT makeup day, I use Nude Cleansing Oil), again with the eyecream, and then follow with the  Alpha H Liquid Gold.  Initially, I thought this was a toner, but it's actually a glycolic acid-based treatment that gently helps to resurface your skin overnight.  I love this stuff, it's one of very few products where you can actually see the difference in your skin the morning after.  Your skin will just glow, and you'll look like you had at least ten hours sleep.  My only issue with this product is that you have to apply it to cotton wool, and it turns out that I really don't like applying things with cotton wool.  Yes, I'm a bit odd.  It's fine, I'm used to it.

It's not really recommended that you use Liquid Gold every night (you'll resurface yourself into oblivion if you do!) so on aternate nights, I use the Rejuvenating Cream as a night treatment.  Meant for daily use on mature skins, this is a little too rich for me to use all the time, but I find every other night as a boost to the Liquid Gold, it's perfect as a night cream.

This has been a very long post for what is actually a pretty simple routine!  I'm currently swapping in a couple of new products (changing the night cream, and the serum, basically), for review purposes but this is what I've been using for the last couple of months, and I've loved it.  What's your current routine, and what wonder products have you found and enjoyed recently?

The Fine Print: Some of the products mentioned in this post were provided by PR for review purposes.  Others I bought.  It doesn't matter which is which.  I like what I like, and it matters not in the slightest under those circumstances how I came by the product.  So there, how's about them apples?