Bespoke Lipstick with Daniel Sandler & Cosmetics a la Carte

Picture the scene: a boring Tuesday morning at work, your mobile phone rings unexpectedly, and it's a world-renowned makeup artist who tells you that they want to create a lipstick for you.


What's a beauty blogger to do?


Well, in the case of this particular beauty blogger, you basically SQUEEEEEEEE with excitement, and run round the office like a lunatic for twenty minutes then say a very polite "thank you very much, I'd love that" then set a time, a date, and a place to sort everything out.

Which is how, two weeks ago, I found myself in the Cosmetics a la Carte store in Knightsbridge with two of my favourite people: one Mr Daniel Sandler and the always wonderful Lynne Sanders. Tucked away like a tiny jewel box in a very exclusive part of London, the  Cosmetics a la Carte boutique is a beautifully inviting, indeed, wondrous place to spend a few hours, and Daniel, Lynne and I had a delightful morning poring over the selection of lipsticks I'd brought along for inspiration (some of which you can see above), and trying to figure out what we were going to create.

First of all, we talked about some of my favourite lipsticks, and, once again, we spoke about my love for Chanel's long-discontinued "India" lipstick (Chanel, if you're reading this, bring it back!).  I've spent the best part of ten years attempting to find a dupe for this lipstick, and the nubbin of the shade that I still have remains one of my All Time Favourite Lipsticks of All Time, and after a while, we decided to use this as the "inspiration" behind my new signature shade.

This was where the fun really began! Using Cosmetics a la Carte rainbow of lipstick shades, we began mixing and matching lipsticks together in various combinations to recreate India (which you can just see at the bottom of the picture above), we mixed up three different combinations, then tried them on the lips to see how they matched up.

Once we'd hit on what we thought was a winning mixture (you can see Daniel writing out the "recipes" there) a little further chat revealed that Daniel also wanted to move me out of my comfort zone a little bit.  It might not be completely obvious to most readers of this blog, but it turns out that I'm far more adventurous with my eye makeup than I am with my lipstick ... what that basically boils down to is that there are certain lip colours that I simply will not try.  So, of course, it was decided that for lipstick number two, we'd go a little crazy!

Purple.  It's going to be huge this winter apparently, and that's where Daniel decided my lips had to go ... his inspiration was "Pretty Biba" or ... "Happy Goth" (and where have we heard that phrase before ... hmn?).  Now, I freely admit that I much prefer a bright lipstick to a dark one, having an inkling that dark shades are too ageing for me, these days, but Lynne and Daniel were insistent that I'd be able to pull this off.   I remained sceptical, but, it was kind of hard to resist!  Of the three purple groupings above, I was drawn to the one at bottom left, so we used those to start off with.

Once again, we mixed up a couple of shades, one brighter, one darker, and tried them on the lips to decide which colour I liked best.  Here's how the one at the top looked on:

Funny camera angles R us

There was a hard decision to be made here, but I finally made it - and selected one of them to be made up into a full bullet of lipstick.  You'll be able to see the finished results tomorrow!  And you'll find out what we called them then too ...


Now, you might think I'm a jammy so-and-so for getting to have a bespoke lipshade created (and, well, let's face it, you'd be right, I am blessed with great and very thoughtful friends who I've met as a result of this blog, and well, yes, I'm jammy), but one of the exciting things that I found out during my time in the store is that anyone, and I do mean anyone, can also have this service carried out for them at Cosmetics a la Carte.  All the staff are trained in this technique, and it costs £47.  Yes, £47 is fairly expensive for a lipstick, but, for a bespoke lipstick, created for you and you alone, I actually think it's a bit of a bargain, particularly when you compare it to the cost of, say, a Tom Ford lipstick at £35, or a Guerlain Rouge G at £28.  I think for brides, or for a special birthday, or any special event, it would also make a great present for someone, too.  To find out more, take a look at the Cosmetics a la Carte website.    Sadly, Daniel isn't included in the price ...

So, tune in tomorrow where I'll show you the lipsticks in detail ... 


The Fine Print: No PRs were harmed in the writing of this blog post, I was invited along as a friend of Daniel Sandler, the blog post is purely incidental. It's also belated, but that's another story ...



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

Nail of the Day OPI DS Chiffon

Posts are a bit thin this week because I've been ill (hang on till Monday though, won't you? I have a doozy coming up!) but this little bottle of precious arrived yesterday and it was all I could do not to paint my mails there and then!





OPI DS polishes are a particular weakness of mine, being - by and large - holographics. And I love me a bit of holo action! I spotted this on lovely Jen's Lipstick Luvvies blog sale at the weekend and had to snap it up!





Under halogen lighting (like the two pics above) it shows as a little peachy-pink number, but under fluorescents and in natural daylight (as below) you can see that it is actually a very sweet, soft baby-pink:





Not a colour I wear often, but very cheering, and a perfect antidote to last week's chocolate brown that I hated so much.

I bought another one too, and I'll show you that soon ...

Kebelo Hair Smoothing Treatment

Keen not to market themselves as simply yet another "keratin straightening treatment", Kebelo have arrived with their plant-based, totally formaldehyde-free, 3-step smoothing system, and I was lucky enough to be one of the first people in the UK to try it recently.


Referring to their system as the "foundation for beautiful hair", Kebelo doesn't promise stick-straight hair, but instead it swears to free you from frizz for up to 100 days, whilst leaving you with body, bounce and beautiful hair.  You know me, I can't resist something that promises to tame my crazy barnet, so I leapt at the chance to try it out.


The Kebelo Smoothing Treatment starts with a wash with a clarifying shampoo, which strips your hair of all styling products without leaving your hair dry or brittle, in fact, when my hair was dried off a little at this stage, I was pleasantly impressed at how soft and shiny my hair felt!   Usually clarifying shampoos leave your hair feeling a little like straw, and the ones that don't leave your hair feeling a lot like straw, but not this one.  


Once your hair is mostly dry, the smoothing solution is applied to your hair, and then this is set into your hair with straightening irons.  Because flat poker-straight hair doesn't suit me too well, Aeron set my hair with a slight kink at the ends, and didn't start the straightening right from the root, so that my hair would dry with body, I was really pleased with how it looked.  But, for me, the best part of this treatment is that you don't have to wait three days before you can wash your hair again, literally as soon as you finish the heat part of your treatment, your hair can get wet.


The third stage of the system is the after-care, which is included in the cost of your package - which is a nice touch, and a refreshing change, which I've been trialling for the last few weeks.  In the package (of which there are two, one for oily and one for dry hair), you get a shampoo, a conditioner, and a weekly hair masque.  I've found them to be excellent, pleasantly scented, nicely lathering and highly conditioning.  The weekly masque in particular leaves my hair soft and smooth after use.  Sometimes low-sodium, no SLS shampoos and conditioners can be more of a chore than a pleasure to use, and I'm happy to say this isn't the case with these.


As to my hair, I'm very happy with it.  It's shiny. Very, very, very shiny.  To the extent that some people have actually commented on it.  It doesn't, as advertised, dry completely straight, but it is free of frizz:

This is my hair after air-drying, with no product, and more than four weeks after treatment. It still has body and movement, but I can style it with lots of body if I want to, or just run the straighteners over it to smooth out the ends.  I'm very pleased with it, here's hoping it lasts the full 12 weeks!


The Kebelo Smoothing Treatment costs around £200 and can be used on practically any kind of hair. Click here to find out more.  My treatment took place at Four London in Mayfair, which is a very lovely place indeed.


The Fine Print: Get Lippie was a guest of both Kebelo and Four London.  


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

Alpha H Daily Essential Moisturiser - Factor 50+

Get Lippie has flu at the moment, so that means a new guest review on the blog!  I'm handing over to my lovely workmate Kate, who asked me for some advice a couple of weeks ago and got a little more than she bargained for ...

Within a couple of days of hearing that my colleague Louise wrote a beauty blog, I'd emailed her with my own particular problem, begging her to offer advice. Like the sparkling, perfectly made-up fairy godmother that she is, she came through with an absolutely corking suggestion.

Here's the problem. I have really fair skin that burns under the sun and colours from the heat very easily. I am also prone to eczema flare-ups - it's mostly stress related, but my skin is an awkward so-and-so and likes to surprise me sometimes. I use a daily moisturiser with SPF15 but as soon as we hit the summer, that just doesn't cut it.

So I'm forced to put my factor 50 Piz Buin on my face. Face is never happy with this and often complains, and I can forget make-up at this point as it all slips straight off.

After hearing my plea, Louise, being the star that she is, came rushing to see me clutching a sample bottle of Alpha-H Daily Essential Moisturiser SPF 50+ and told me to give it a try.

Piz Buin, you will never see my face again (although you can still take care of my back, arms, legs and everywhere else).

The big bonus about the cream is that it's light, but still manages to have enough moisturising might to replace my usual daily. And because it is so light I can wear foundation over the top without looking like
I've just been swimming. Most important of all, of course, is that it has prevented me from burning.

Now that I've gone ahead and bought the full size bottle, I can tell you that it comes in a handy pump action bottle. This is great as a little goes a long way and it'll help me use it sparingly so I don't run out too soon.

I'm going to be wearing Alpha-H 50+ during the daylight parts of my 24 hour, 78 mile walk this weekend. And that little sample tube from Louise will form an essential part of my pack. Thanks, Louise!

Follow my progress from occasional walker to endurance strider at http://wardwalkslondon.blogspot.com

***

Thank you very much Kate, looking forward to seeing if you got burned or not on your mammoth walk!

 
The Fine Print: Original sample size was obtained via a goodie bag at an event several months ago.  Several full-size bottles have been purchased since.



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

Project Perfume - Book Review

(Click picture for source)

 Alongside "Perfumes the A-Z Guide" by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, I've also read "The Perfect Scent" by Chandler Burr, and it's completely, totally and utterly fascinating.


Burr is the "scent critic" for The New York Times Magazine, and in this book he highlights the journeys of two perfumes on their way to market, One a high-end Perfume House; Hermes, making their way with Un Jardin Sur le Nil, and at the other end of the perfume spectrum, there is Coty, trying to get a celebrity perfume to market, and that is Sarah Jessica Parker's "Lovely".


At times unintentionally hilarious, as when a trip along the Nile becomes a bit of a disaster when the team from Hermes, who have just drafted in Jean-Claude Ellena as their in-house "nose",  discover that the gardens along the Nile don't really smell of anything, but at all times fascinating, it's an instructive and sometimes quite emotive book about how the high end and the mass-market go about things in their respective industries.


The Hermes story is very much about how much a company can have invested in one person's vision of how a scent should be, and how that will affect a company as whole, whereas the Coty story of Lovely is a little of the opposite, about how "smoothing the edges off" one person's vision can satisfy the company's marketing needs.  At least, that's how I read it.


All through the book you're treated to visions from both Jean-Claude Ellena and Sarah Jessica Parker (who played a surprisingly large role in the creation of her first perfume), of how they wanted the perfumes to smell, and what their inspirations were, and how they went from iteration to iteration of each scent until they were ready (sometimes only just!) to go to market.  I found this very interesting, so much so that I went out and bought a sample of each of the scents in the book, so I could smell the finished product for myself.


First things first, I'm not a massive fan of either Jean-Claude Ellena or of celebrity scents in general, Ellena's scents I find are simply too ethereal, too light, and too ... thin for me.  I can appreciate the master skill that he puts into making his perfumes, but, for me, they disappear too quickly, and usually I'm left resentful that after ten minutes or so I can no longer smell them at all.  With that in mind, to me, Un Jardin Sur Le Nil is pleasant, fruity, and, unsurprisingly insubstantial.  It is something that I will probably get more wear out of during hot weather, where I will appreciate something lighter and fruitier during the summer.  I'll be revisiting this one at a later date, I'm sure.


The real revelation for me is  Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker, which I was surprised to find actually lives up to the name.  I am, I admit, a bit of a snob, there are no two ways about it, and I have, for years totally ignored - rightly or wrongly - celebrity perfumes.  I have no real desire to smell like the latest trend, and as the latest trends in perfume all appear to veer towards fruity toilet cleaners (particularly at the cheaper end of the z-list celeb scale)  then, I don't think I've missed all that much.  But this is a little gem, a non-fruity, rather sophisticated little musky floral that I don't mind admitting that I've been carrying around in my handbag for a week or two now.  It's a simple, easy wear, that doesn't need much thought, but it is, as the name suggests it will be, rather pretty, and sometimes, when you've been wrangling with other perfumes which can, and indeed do smell like cat-poo doused in honey (and that's a GOOD THING btw, but more about that later), Lovely is a nice little no-brainer that won't make you smell like Kerry Katona.


So, The Perfect Scent is a "right riveting read" as my mum would say, and a salutory lesson that price isn't - always - everything when it comes to scent.  Highly recommended.


The  Fine Print: Everything mentioned in this post was bought with my own cash, even the cat-poo-doused-in-honey scent, which I'll tell you more about later.


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

Nail of the Day

I tried OPI's Suzi Loves Cowboys from their recent Texas collection, but the plain dark brown creme shade didn't really suit me, so I souped it up a little with a coat of Nfu Oh #61:




And it turned out a lot nicer than anticipated. However, this was two coats of OPI, two coats of Nfu Oh, and two coats of Poshe topcoat, it lasted a day, then started pinging off all over the place!




So, a nice combination, but next time, only one coat each of the OPI and topcoat ....

Haut Totes - How much do I love thee?

Answer: Quite a darn lot, actually.

It's not often I get called a "happy goth" three times in one week, but this bag from Haut Totes has a lot to answer for ... ! I saw London Makeup Girl's El Dia de los Muertos bag about a year ago and fell in love with it a bit - but it took me a little while to order one of my own!  

When I saw the pink skulls though, I knew this was the one I wanted, I love the roses, and the cheery black skulls on the pink background.  Mind, I love practically everything on the Haut Totes Etsy shop, even the stuff with fairies on, which is partially why it took me so long to order, I simply couldn't make up my mind!

To go with the tote bag (which is made from an amazingly strong mesh, covered in the skull-printed fabric, seriously, you could haul around pretty much anything in here without worrying about it ripping), I also ordered a makeup bag:

Which is nice and roomy, and the back is mesh, so I can see at a glance what's in there, plus, I also ordered myself a wrist bag/cellphone holder (you need to buy the strap separately, but it's very cheap), which is astonishingly versatile:

I got the wristbag for those occasions when I can't be bothered with a handbag at all, it fits my iphone very well, and is lightly padded so there's little danger of damaging your phone if you drop it.  Not, of course, that I've ever tested this claim ... {ahem}

My bag makes me smile every time I look at it, and it's had a lot of compliments in its own right, which is about all you can ask from a pink bag covered in skulls, eh?  Haut Totes bags cost around £30, plus shipping from the US (so beware of customs charges), and the turnaround time is around a month, as all items are handmade from scratch by the lovely Melissa once ordered.

I'm taking this one to Portugal with me in June, as I think it'll make a perfect holiday bag, big enough for books, and lotions, and a towel.

The Fine Print: I bought this, and I'll be ordering more from Melissa soon ... Pink Lightning, you will be mine, oh yes ... All pictures in this post replicated by kind permission of Haut Totes - thank you Melissa!

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