Nails, Nails, Nails

Lots of people have been asking me about my nails recently, so I thought I'd share my new discovery!  About six weeks ago, my nails looked like the picture above.  This is what they look like now:

Index finger aside (which I keep shorter for contact lens-related reasons), there's quite a difference!  There's also a bit of staining, but I'll gloss over (ha ha!) that ...

I get an occasional manicure, and Zoran at Equus has been raving about Nailtiques for months, because he's a firm believer that nails need protein, so, after a uhming and ahing about it for a while, I finally bit the bullet and bought a bottle.  And, I love it.  I've been using it as a basecoat (I did read the instructions on the bottle, which say to use it as a treatment, without polish, but, I ... er... ignored them) for the last month or so, and my nails have been virtually indestructible since.

You need to mix the ingredients in Formula 2 (which is for weak, peeling or splitting nails) gently, then apply a thin coat to the nails, taking care not to get any on your skin.  I find it dries really quickly, and gives a great base for varnish to cling to. 

I bought my bottle of Nailtiques from Beauty Bay, which cost me £15.50, and it's a bargain, as I've since seen it at Garden Pharmacy costing £19.95 for the same 15ml bottle.  I'm also taking a course of Imedeen hair and nails, so I'm hoping that between the two, my nails will stay like this for a while now ...

Travel Kits with Maybelline and Victoria's Secret

I picked up a few makeup bits and bobs recently, I thought you might like to see*.

This is the Maybelline "Sexy Look in the City" collection, and a Victoria's Secret Sultry Neutrals palette.

The Maybellline kit contains:

 Falsies mascara, black eyeliner, a beige lipgloss, and - what I mainly bought it for (okay, what I actually bought it for is the cute pink mock-croc makeup back, but bear with me) - is the eyeshadow palette, which has shades of chocolate and purple, which struck me as very flattering for hazel eyes:

 And oh look, taupe!  This is the Eye Studio palette in Intense Chic.  It has a muted beige, coppered brown (which is a surprisingly complex shade on the skin, having purple tones as well as brown), a soft pink, with a hint of shimmer, and a matte taupe, which again has hints of purple.


Purple and taupe.  It's like it was made for me.  But it wasn't, so forget I said it, mmkay?


And onto the Victoria's Secret palette, which, I've been amazed by the quality of, especially considering the price point of £12.50.  It contains 8 products, three lip colours, three eyeshadows, a bronzer and a blusher:

The lipshades are soft and creamy - if a little on the sheer side - and they eyecolours are extremely smooth and silky, colour me a little astonished.  I'd always thought of Victoria's Secret (not Sekkrit, as I keep wanting to type) cosmetics as being on the cheap and nasty side, but this is definitely punching above it's weight in the value stakes.

Hard to see, as the colours are close to my skintone, but they're all there, I swatched the powders on paper too, as this makes the shades easier to see:

Shades are sheer on the first pass, but they are buildable, I can see me getting lots of use out of this palette, and the size is perfect for travel.  I'm not normally a fan of "mixed" palettes, hating the way lipglosses usually end up covered in eyeshadow fallout,  but the stepped palette - and having the glosses at the top - bypasses that.


What are your best purchases lately?
 
 * Everyone knows stuff bought at the airport with leftover foreign currency counts as free, right?**
**Yup, I bought these.
This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.

Nail of the Day - Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess

Couldn't resist a bit of this gorgeous metallic bronze shade from Estee Lauder to compliment my newly tanned hands when I got home last week!

Shimmering, and packed with multi-coloured flecks, this is a perfect compliment to any tan - and, it's not so brown that it'll look odd on paler skin, either.

Copper in some lights, bronze in others, but very elegant, and - for me at least - very different to a lot of my other polishes.

(No idea what I'm doing with my fingers here)

Wears like iron, too.  I wore this for four days straight without getting a single chip, or even any tipwear, but then I got distracted in the office and accidentally covered it in Sharpie so had to remove it.

Bronze Goddess is part of the annual limited edition summer collection from Estee Lauder, called ... um ... "Bronze Goddess" and should still be available on counters now, the nail varnishes cost around £14, but they last forever, have stylish bottles, and well, I like them.  So there.


The Fine Print: PR sample.  From about four months ago.  Bad blogger.

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

Post-Holiday Product Round-Up

Well, I think we can say this year's holiday was a success!  We ate lots, drank lots, walked lots, have lovely tans, and - best of all - I didn't get prickly heat!  If you read my holiday preparation posts, you'll know that this was the main thing I was worried about before we headed off, and I couldn't be happier that I was able to swim and sunbathe without the familiar pin-pricks of doom.

Here are my thoughts on the products I took with me:

 Piz Buin Allergy Sunscreen** range and Imedeen Tan Optimiser*

I think these are definitely the products I have to thank for my comfort in the sun, the Piz Buin spray is a brilliant addition to the range, as it sinks in a lot more quickly and evenly than the cream (I had both, and spent five days using factor 30, and the remaining nine using factor 15 - even so, I think we erred on the side of caution, to be honest).  My skin never felt dry in the sun, or overloaded with product, even when we were using factor 30.  The Imedeen, did, I feel, prepare my skin for the sun better, I didn't really have that "pink" stage that MrLippie did on a few occasions, so that was good.  The spray nozzle is very cunning and easy to use, but spraying areas like backs of legs and the like was a little difficult, but I was willing to overlook this as it's easy enough to spray some cream onto the palms of your hands and use the product that way instead.

I did find, however, that the Piz Buin facial sunscreen was far too heavy for my skin, I used it for a few days, and realised I was getting really heavy congestion on my cheeks, so swapped it for:

Instituit Esthederm Bronz Repair for Normal/Strong Sun*.


And, after a few days of using this too, I was still congested (massive big red splotches on my skin, not great) so, when I managed to get to Seville for the day on an excursion, I picked up this:

Lancaster Sun Age Control Lotion Factor 15.


This is a light apricot-coloured lotion (unlike the heavier white creams of both Instituit Esthederm and Piz Buin) and it suited my skin a lot better, and, once the good weather returns to the UK, this  is something I'll be using on a daily basis.  My blotches cleared up in about two days of using this - alongside my Decleor Sun Serum (which I used alongside the two others, too - as a control).  I was delighted with this product, and only wish we had a wider range of Lancaster products available in the UK!  If anyone knows where I can get a back up bottle of this (it cost me nearly Forty euro, but it was worth it) I'd be grateful.

Something else I was utterly delighted with was my pedicure, before I went away I slipped off to The Powder Room for a Mavala pedicure (I chose Curacao Blue - a perfect "swimming pool" blue shade), and even now, three weeks later my toes look just as good as the day they were first painted!  Excellent products, and a wonderful service from the PowderPuff  Girls, too!  The ridge filler in particular is fantastic, I've never seen my toenails look so smooth!

 I'd definitely take away all of these products again, there isn't a duffer amongst them - the facial sunscreens from Piz Buin and Instituit Esthederm are probably more suited to a drier skin than mine, in all honesty, they're both excellent and give great sun protection, they just didn't suit me and my combination skin, which tends to get oilier in the heat.

The Fine Print: Products marked with * were PR samples, apart from the ones marked ** which were a mixture of PR samples and purchases.  Products with no asterisks were purchases.  No one reads these anyway, do they?


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

Some Holiday Snaps

I spent the last few weeks in Carvoeiro on the Algarve, and I thought you might like to see some holiday snaps:

 This was our second visit, and we'll most definitely be going back, I love the place, even if my legs are still recovering from all the hill walking on this trip!

Our favourite places to visit in Carvoeiro are:
Onze (don't miss this place if you get a chance to go, Ricardo and his team are amazing),
Taste (a little off the beaten track, but amazing tapas in a wonderful setting) 
and Jokers, which is the only place in the world ever to get Mr Lippie taking part in karaoke! (and they have Wifi)  Say hello to Sarah  when you get there ... and if she offers you a Ciroc, it's on me ...

The Fine Print: Nothing to declare in this post - this was a holiday!
This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.

A Week in Lipstick with Dior Polish

Yes, I'm back and I no longer need a stunt hand, so A Week in Lipstick is back too! Here's what I've been wearing:





This is Dior's Lip Polish in shade 003, a milky sheer peach. It's essentially a balm, but it imparts a hint of colour, and I find it goes very well on tanned skin:





I also have shade 002 which is a strawberry milkshake shade, but I think that looks better on paler skin.

The USP of Dior Lip Polish is the completely round "spinning" brush, which is intended to massage your lips as you apply, and stimulates blood supply to the lips:











I don't, entirely, believe the claims that the round brush stimulates the lips to the extent that it'll make a difference to the condition of your lips (I suspect you'd have to spend a LOT of time applying, rather than the usual 5 seconds or so you'd spend applying balm), but it does soften and smooth your lips and it's a nice moisturising balm to boot.

There's just one thing I don't like and that's this:





My brush arrived split. It still works, but at £20, I'd expect better quality control, to be honest.

So yeah, just one lip product this week. I don't think I'm ill…

The Fine Print: I bought this in Paris. From Sephora.

I'm Baaaack!!!

Hello darlings!





Just a little picture of where I've been for the last few weeks, and letting you know I'll be back up to blogging speed very soon … I've got freckles you wouldn't believe!

What've I missed?