D&G Orchid Lipstick Applied

I'm a doofus, I showed you the D&G autumn collection earlier this week and forgot to show what is, I think, the standout item of the collection!

That is the lipstick in Orchid, a glorious deep, rich fuschia shade, with a rather blue base:




I adore this shade, it's dramatic without being too "in your face" about it.

A creamy formulation (without feeling greasy) that lasts well, much better than, say a YSL Rouge Volupte, another creamy formulation, but one I don't like, to be honest. It fades evenly, leaving you with no ring of doom! But, being both very creamy and such a strong shade, it does have a tendency to feather, so ideally it needs a lipliner as part of your application routine.

I'll be wearing this tomorrow for a wedding, paired with a neutral, slightly smokey, eye. Similar to this, but with (hopefully) better lighting!




The swatch in the top pic is rather more true to life, don't know why I'm blue in this pic!

D&G lipsticks are available from both Harrods and Selfridges. At least until Selfridges ban them, that is!

Drawers!

Yes, I'm showing you my drawers today, for today is the day I downsize my makeup, toiletries and haircare collection prior to the "Big Move" next week.

I've just realised that seven of the drawers in this chest (plus the top of it, plus the ikea, um ... thingy downstairs, plus a couple of shelves in the wardrobe and a plastic crate in the bathroom) are full of my beauty products.

I've always been a beauty hoarder, my rooms are filled with products I treasure, and cannot bear to be parted with, stuff I like that I'm going to use again on a semi-regular basis and stuff I'm not sure about but I'm convinced will "come in handy" one day ...

Now, as I'm moving to a flat with less storage space than I currently enjoy, my challenge to myself is to GET RID OF SOME OF IT!  But my question to you is how?  Where do I start? Naturally, I'll be giving most of the rejects to friends, but only after throwing out some of the more venerable (elderly/disgusting) items.  No blog sales, here, sorry! 

If you had to cut down your stash by half (say) what would you get rid of?  And, what, out of your collection, would you absolutely not be parted with under any circumstances whatsoever?

I need some inspiration, peeps!

Review - Daniel Sandler products

Okay, so yesterday I told you what it was like having a makeover from a celebrity makeup artist, and today - as is my wont - I'm going to go through a few of the products from the Daniel Sandler range of cosmetics.  I'll mainly be looking at the basics and the standout products today

I'll start with Daniel Sandler Waterbase Foundation with Concealer. Actually, I find this would be more accurately described as a tinted moisturiser, with a concealer, rather than a foundation, but this is not to denigrate the product in the slightest.  It's a fairly lightweight, sheeny finish, that gives you a light to medium (buildable) coverage.  But I will say this, in the jar, this looks ... well ... orange.  It's actually pretty scary looking!

The jar you can see here is the "fair" shade.  Now, I'm fairly pale (but not that pale) but I think my cooler, more porcelain-skinned friends might struggle with trying to use this to build coverage, to be honest.

As it is, on my skin, it gives me a great glow, and evens out my skin-tone beautifully (see the gold opalescence in the bottle there?  Flipping lovely), but I suspect that on paler skins, you'd need to use it with a light hand to avoid a certain element of tangerine creeping in.  On my dry-ish skin, it leaves me with a dewy finish, but oilier-skinned sisters will definitely need to set it with powder.

You can see how the shade "pops" a little against my skin there, but I have to say that this does blend well, and won't leave you with a tidemark, even if you are paler than the shade in the jar.  I find applying it with a brush is a great way to buff it into your skin.

The bottle is a little awkward though, having a wide mouth, and a "paddle" attached to the lid to enable you to get the product out, which leaves me with worries that once you get towards the end of the bottle, it'll be exceptionally difficult to get out the last drops of your product.  It's a problem I have with La Prairie's foundation bottles too, to be honest.

There is a concealer hidden in the lid, and this is a brilliant, brilliant concealer.  Light, but opaque enough to conceal, and does not dry cakey, or look dry on the skin.  This is important for me, as I find that very many concealers are far too heavy for the under-eye area, and have a tendency to settle into under-eye lines that simply aren't ordinarily visible without the concealer in the first place!

It's a little paler in shade than the foundation in the bottle:

I just love this, if it was sold separately, I'd buy backups of it in a heartbeat!  I don't actually use much in the way of concealer (heathen that I am), as I find a lot of them merely draw attention to your flaws rather than hide them, but this one is great for under-eye shadows.

I mentioned that you might need to set the foundation, naturally, there is a powder in the range, and that is the Daniel Sandler Invisible Blotting Pressed Powder (catchy!).  Housed in a handsome pewter case, this is a pressed white powder that is totally colourless when applied:

Ignore the instructions to use the (rather rubbish) puff,  you need a brush for this. I find that a very slight dusting of this is more than enough to see off any shine, and, as it's colourless, it doesn't change the shade of your base, and this also makes it suitable for any skintone.  I've used this with a variety of foundations - I'm fickle - and it works well over all of them.  I've also used it over bare (moisturised) skin, and it smoothes wonderfully.  I like it as much as my ELF HD powder, possibly more, as it's a lot more portable.  Not to mention far more classily packaged! It can be slightly prone to "glazing" in the pan if you use the puff, so be aware that you might need to give it a bit of a scratch with something rough once in a while.

So, onto Daniel's infamous blushers: Daniel Sandler Watercolour

Shown above are two shades (there are seven in total), on the left is Truth, and on the right is Cherub.  Truth is a lightly peachy-nude shade with a hint of silver shimmer, and Cherub is a lovely baby-pink.  Both give, on my pale yellow skin, a light flush of colour, and their lasting power is amazing, far better than most powder blushers in my collection, and certainly better than very many cream blushers. Separately they're lovely shades, and I find that by mixing a drop of each, I can get a really nice shade for a little more drama.

However, there is a very definite learning curve to using these products.  As you've probably guessed from my description of their lasting powers, this means that they're actually quite highly pigmented, and this means you have to handle them with caution.  A single drop of either is actually more than enough for both cheeks, and if you pick one of the darker shades in the range (Dare for instance), then it's probably enough for your lips too.  After spending a few days sporting fetching blush-splotches on the back of my hand, I discovered that the best way to apply these is to actually drip one single drop of the blush onto a synthetic (very important) blush brush, and then apply the colour to my cheeks.  Once blended, these babies stay put, and are very flattering shades, they've very quickly become absolute staples in my routine, particularly Truth, which is perfect for a barely there glow that suits almost all makeup looks.

And now onto the infamous waterproof eyeliners (which were actually what I was meant to be looking at before Daniel decided I needed a makeover!) which you can see here: Daniel Sandler Waterproof Eyeliner. There are six shades in the range, brown, grey, black, purple, green and blue, the latter three of which are brand new to the range.

The brown, grey and black are matte shades, but the purple, green and blue have a hint of gentle shimmer.  Daniel describes these three as his "jewelled" shades, and I can see what he's getting at, the green in particular is a stunningly pretty shade, which is surprisingly appropriate for the waterline.

These pencils are soft, creamy (the above swatches are one pass with the pencil over bare skin), and very blendable.  Once set - which is fairly quickly - these do not budge. They will fade over the course of 12-14 hours or so, but rain won't budge them, and even if you cry whilst wearing them, you won't end up with rivulets of black or green over your face.  You can trust me on this, I've cried a lot recently for one reason or another, and these babies have never let me down. They are great - I much prefer them to Gosh's waterproof liners, for example, my only real criticism of them is that the purple needs to be MORE purple!

So, there you go, a quick (ha!) look at some of the basics from Daniel's range, anything you think you'll be trying?  I'll have a look at the colour cosmetics at a later date.

The Fine Print: These were an unexpected gift from Daniel, however, I've never been one to turn down an opportunity to look a gift horse in the  ... er ... eyeliner. Links provided in this post are not affliate links, and are just provided for informational purposes.  They're from a variety of sources because I'm a flibbertigibbet.

A day with Daniel Sandler

Naomi Campbell.  Jade Jagger.  Yasmin le Bon. Kate Moss. Joanna Lumley.  Keira Knightly. And now ... Get Lippie.  Oh yes, Daniel Sandler has all the luck ...

Now, if you're a regular reader, then it should be fairly well known by now that I adore Daniel Sandler. Having met him a few times this year, I've found him to be funny, friendly, down-to-earth and I've always found that time spent in his company is great fun, so when he invited me for a personal introduction to his makeup range recently, I found it to be an offer I couldn't actually refuse ... well, could you?

Popping along to his studio on Harrod's fifth floor, I find that Daniel's Hollywood-style makeup counter looks amazing, all mirrors and spotlights, and it's a glamorous spot to sit a spell and have a natter about lipgloss with the man himself.  Initially there just to take a look at Daniel's new collection of waterproof eyeliners, it's a matter of mere moments before Daniel has decided that I'm to have a makeover.  Actually, I didn't think I looked that bad beforehand to be honest!  But hey, the man knows what he's doing, and I'm not one to turn down a makeover when one is offered, particularly when it's offered so politely!

Discovering that Daniel and I first got into makeup at around the same age, and discovering that we were both influenced by the New Romantics (yes, I'm showing my age again, I know) was hilarious.  I had a Girl's World when I was about ten, and the book was full of "piratical" makeup thanks to Adam and the Ants but I found it really difficult to re-create the looks with just a green and a blue crayon! Confessing this to Daniel, he told me that he spent a lot of time grinding down chalk to make pigments for the makeup for his school plays, and that this had given him a great lesson in how cosmetics are made, which he admits has given him a boost when it came time for him to create his own line.

I'd love to tell you more about what Daniel and I talked about, but alas, I'd made a fatal error on the day.  I took Mr Lippie along, and discovered that he and Daniel got along like a house on fire!  So much so, that I could barely get a word in edgeways between the two of them ...honestly, I'm banning MrL from makeup events now, he makes me look totally socially inept at times, bless 'im.

Daniel did make time to tell me a few snippets about Lulu, and he's one of the very, very few makeup artists who've actually noticed that my eyes are actually different colours, which just shows how much attention the man pays when he's doing your makeup!  He also mentioned that I have a similar complexion to Keira Knightly (yeah, right), and was very happy to discuss all his makeup inspirations - particularly when I pointed out that when you look at his collection, I personally found a few of the inspirations easy to spot - and it was refreshing to hear from him about the problems that go with trying to launch a makeup collection.  Particularly how frustrating it is when things don't come out precisely as you want them to.  All really fascinating to anyone with even a passing interest in the beauty industry, and as a control freak myself (no, really), I had severe sympathy!

So, I'm guessing you're wondering what a makeover with Daniel Sandler actually looks like, hmn?  Well, if you excuse the dopey looks on my face (sorry Daniel), here's the finished article:

I came away with a brown smokey eye (complete with at least two different shades of eyeliner) and berry-stained lips. I don't ordinarily use brown eyeshadow, for a variety of reasons, but I always like the effect when someone else picks it for me, and I adored the choice of berry lips to go with it.  I'd normally shy away from coloured lipstick with such a statement eye look but I thought this worked amazingly well. Maybe a little OTT for an evening spent on the sofa watching X Factor, but such is life ...

I'll be talking you through some of the range of products Daniel has tomorrow, but in the meantime, if you're interested in a makeup lesson from Daniel, you can find the details here: Makeup Lesson with Daniel Sandler

The Fine Print: I was just there to look at the eyeliner, honest! 

Clarisonic WINNER!

Oh, I'm so pleased!  The winner of my Clarisonic competition is ...


SIRVINYA!

Well done lovely, I'll get it in the post to you this week!  A massive thank you to all my entrants - apart from all of those I had to disqualify ...

Dolce & Gabanna Autumn Collection

I got a look at the autumn collection from D&G recently, and it's all about gothic lips, alongside some unusual eyeshadow shades this season.  Let's take a look:

These are the lipglosses in Amethyst and Vibrant.  Both have a very pretty blue micro shimmer, and apply very opaquely. Ironically, the one named Amethyst is the more brown-shade, and Vibrant is  the fuschia.

Both apply feel very moisturising on the lips, and, whilst they are a bit sticky, they're very nice to wear, non-drying, and good coverage.  Speaking of wear, they last about an hour, maybe two on the lips, depending on - of course - if you're eating or drinking whilst wearing them.

There are two lipsticks in the collection, Cosmopolitan, and Orchid.  Naturally, because I'm an idiot, I only have swatches of Cosmopolitan:

As you can see, this is a creme shade, which personally, I find shades a little towards the tangerine ... but it's pretty.  An odd choice for autumn, I think though, after all the coral shades of the summer.  Orchid is a beautiful shade too - a glorious PINK, and I'll bring you a face of the day with that one soon ... it ha disappeared when I was doing the swatches for this set. 

There are also two eyeshadow sets, one a duo, and one a quad.  They're a little unusual, as both contain a pink ... pink eyeshadow?  Hmn ...  First up is the duo: "Evocative", and following is the quad "Divine".

As always, the shadows are very smooth, and fairly pigmented, here's how they look on my fingers:

Most of these shades are matte, with the exception of the pink and blue from the Divine quad, which have a tiny amount of shimmer.  Pink is an unusual shade for eyeshadows, and I think it's even more unusual to release two in the same collection, here's how they compare:

On the left is the Divine pink, and on the left is the Evocative.  As you can see, the Divine is almost frosted, and it's very much on the cool side, whereas Evocative is warmer, almost coral-toned, and is matte.  I find that you can wear the Evocative shades layered over one another, for a wearable look.

No nail varnishes this time around, which is a shame as I still really adore Perfection from the summer collection, and I'd have liked to have seen some new shades.

What do you think?

The Fine Print: Samples were provided for review purposes, which is nice, after my last D&G cosmetic experience.

Clarisonic Giveaway!

Yes, I'm still giving one away, but this is just a little heads up that the competition ends tomorrow at noon.  If you haven't entered already (and if not, why not?), here's the link to find out how to enter.

Looking forward to hearing from you!  C'mon, it's pink, you know you want it ...