Haircare Gadget of the Year

Haircare gadgets and I do not get along.  I'm both a cack-handed muppet, and lazy.  Very, very, very lazy.  I do, in actual fact, own a hairdryer, but I've no idea where it is at the moment. In 2011, I practically gave up using all heated appliances on my hair (even my beloved Cloud Nine's have taken a little break over the last six months or so), because I'm both that lazy, and that cack-handed.  Because of my commitment to the blog though, I continued to trial and test gadgets, and there was only one I used more than twice.

These:  

 

Enrapture Extremity Heated Rollers.


To say I fell for these would be a mild understatement, I fell big, and I fell hard.  These are your average muppet's daydream for glamorous hair, needing not even the slightest bit of hair-styling talent to be able to use them.


The secret is in the clip, metal-lined so they heat up alongside the roller, and ensure that your hair is heated from both inside and outside the curl you've formed on them.  Oh, and the clips ensure they stay in place too - I've had horrific trouble with velcro rollers slipping out, and rollers with pins are, well, painful, lets face it.


I also discovered that it doesn't matter how haphazardly you position them, either, you always end up with wonderful bouncy, shiny, glamorous hair.


Anything that can take my hair from looking like:

It's not dry, it's frizzy, I got caught in a rainshower before I took this pic!

To looking like:

(Um different room, and I'd finished applying my makeup...)

In about 20 minutes without my a) having a nervous breakdown or b) burning myself can't be all bad ...




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

My Lipstick Of The Year

There has been one lipstick this year that I've reached for again and again and again, and it's this one from Tom Ford:

 Um, which one?  Well, oddly enough, it's the one on the right - NOT the red shade.  It's Indian Rose.

Creamy, pigmented, and doesn't make me look like a corpse, I can't get enough of it, and it's practically a nubbin as a result.  I might even get a back up.  Yes,  a backup of a £35 lipstick.

Kill me now. 

See my original post on this shade here, and let me know what your pick of the lipsticks of 2011 is in the comments. 

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

The Very Best Christmas Present For A Beauty Blogger

Would be a lipstick named after them.  It's been a while coming, but, very shortly after Daniel Sandler and I cooked up this shade back in May, the wonderful Lynne Sanders of Cosmetics A La Carte let slip to me that they were adding "Luce" to their permanent line, and I've been like a little kid waiting for Santa ever since!  Imagine, a lipstick that real people can actually buy, named after little old me!

I finally caught a glimpse of it on the website this week, and just the sight of my name on that shade list gives me little chills.  It's definitely one of the greatest presents a beauty blogger could ever have, and I've been wearing my "Luce" all week in celebration*.  It's a lightly sparkling coral shade, which makes for great everyday wear.

My deepest, most sincere thanks to both Daniel Sandler, and Cosmetics a la Carte for making this particular beauty blogger's dream come true.  

The Fine Print: Not an affiliate link, and I'm not remunerated if anyone buys it!

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

Project Perfume - Aromatics Elixir Perfumers Reserve

 It has to be said that I can't resist Aromatics Elixir in any format (though my requests for a bottle of bath oil in this post from January fell onto cruelly deaf ears at Lauder HQ), but, when I heard that Aromatics was to be updated and "refreshed", as part of the 40th anniversary celebrations of the launch of Aromatics back in in 1971, I don't mind admitting that I panicked slightly.  Even after a year of immersing myself  - almost literally - into fragrance, I still think of Aromatics Elixir as "my" fragrance.  Still, I steeled myself into trying it anyway, and ...

Well, it's beautiful.  Still smoky, resinous and as incense-packed as I remember, it is also somehow softer, rounder, gentler and less spiky IN YOUR FACE than the original. An astonishing trick to pull off for what is - or could be - regarded as a flanker.  So many flankers (which are perfumes brought out by a perfume house to cash in on the popularity of an already best-selling fragrance) resemble the original only in name, but I'm happy to say Perfumers Reserve is very definitely easy to recognise as being based on the original. This version however, manages to push the flowers more front and centre, and its easier to recognise the roses in the formulation as a result. It wears a lot closer to the skin. Lacking the almost nuclear sillage of the original, this is much easier to wear, and could be considered more office-friendly.  

Not that office-friendliness has ever bothered me much, I've spent the last couple of weeks wearing some complete and utter patchouli bombs (both of which I'll review soon), with little or no thought to my co-workers.  I like perfume, I'm afraid, and I like to be able to smell my perfume, but if you're scared of wearing "big" fragrances, Perfumers Reserve might be a good way to try something huge, in a way that won't frighten the people around you.

A word about the bottle, I love that it's a "dabber" rather than a spray, so make sure you don't open the bottle the wrong way up, you will end up with damp (but gorgeously fragranced) knees.  The amber bottle with the engraving is rather lovely too.

Oh, and if Santa is reading, I'd like the solid, please, it's in a beautiful compact that can be used as a necklace:

 If the new formulation still doesn't sound like your cup of tea (or incense for that matter), then the original has been reissued with a new bottle to celebrate its birthday:

Happy birthday Aromatics Elixir! Life begins at forty, they say, and I'm happy you're still showing signs of life, even now ...

The Fine Print: I was sent the anniversary bottle of Aromatics Elixir, but I bought the Perfumers Reserve myself.

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

My Pick of the Christmas Candles

I love candles, it's no surprise to anyone reading this blog, really, I mention them a lot.  For a variety of reasons, we're not having a lot of Christmas decorations this year, but one thing I couldn't countenance was not making the new flat at least smell of Christmas.  Here are my pick of the best festive fragranced candles to make your house smell wonderful over the holidays:

Jo Malone Roasted Chestnut

  
Woodsy, slightly smokey, and with just a tiny hint of sweetness, this evokes evenings by a real fire.  The scent is wonderful, but I do find that Jo Malone candles produce quite a lot of soot compared to others, also, this is a large, single wicked candle, which means that if you don't take care of your candles properly, it could be prone to runnelling.  Worth it for the scent and excellent burning time though, I've had this on the go for the best part of two months now, and still have over a third left.

Annick Goutal Noel 

Fizzy with the scent of citrus and pine, this is a wonderful evocation  of a crisp wintry walk in the countryside.  Meant to evoke a Christmas tree decorated with dried fruits in the European fashion, this is a beautifully uplifting fresh scent, and manages - wonderfully - to avoid smelling of pine toilet cleaner.  It reminds me a little of sherbet lemons when you first sniff the jar, I love it.


Elemis Starlight Spa 

The most "traditional" Christmas candle on this list, this is bursting  with oranges, cloves, cinnamon and vanilla, it smells of pomanders, mulled wine and ... well ... Christmas.  If it were any more edible, you could call it mince pie flavour and no one would argue with you.  I adore the silver jar too, which flickers in the candlelight as the wax inside burns down, to a very lovely effect.

Diptyque Epinette and Perdigone

Epinette, in its green glass holder is a "spruce" scent.  Less crisp with citrus than the similar-sounding "Noel" above, this has hints of bosky tree bark underneath the intoxicating pine-needle fragrance, making it a little darker, more reminscent of a pine forest at dusk than a crisp wintery day.  Still wonderful though.


Perdigone is a spiced plum affair, hinted at in its red glass holder.  Less redolent of clove and cinnamon than the "Starlight Spa" candle, it smells how I imagine old-fashioned sugar plums would.  It's slightly sweet and fruity (but not offensively so) and more "perfume-y" than the other four, but it makes a very good compliment to the others, rounding out their various quite sharp scents, and forming a good counterpoint to the smokiness of the Jo Malone too. Yes, I do burn them all at the same time, it's quite addictive!


My only regret about the Diptyque candles is that I went for the mini sizes, and I'm scared I'll burn them all up before Christmas itself ...


What's the scent of Christmas for you guys?

The Fine Print:  A mixture of PR samples, and purchases.  There will be repurchases of most of them for next year though, you betcha.


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

Paris Purchases: Guerlain Hiver en Russie

No trip to Paris is complete without a trip to Guerlain.  And, no trip to Guerlain is complete without a purchase, come to that. This time I wanted to make my souvenir very special, something I can't find in the UK, and the ladies of the Champs Elysée did me proud on this trip:

The gift wrapping in store is exquisite, it was heartbreaking to have to unwrap this. So what is it? (some of you might already have guessed, from the title of the post, I'm aware)

Can you tell what it is yet? 

 How about now?

That's right, it's a candle.  But oh my, what a candle.  Guerlain have four scents, and for me it was toss-up between this one and Bois des Indes (Indian Woods), but after sniffing several times, I finally settled for Hiver en Russie (Russian Winter), as it is full of incense and is heady with myrrh, making it, for me a perfect candle for the darker months.

I think it will make a perfect pairing with my Tom Ford Tuscan Leather candle (oddly, both are black candles) for a smoke-y intoxicating scent for the winter evenings.  I can't wait to light them both together.


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

Paris Purchases - Toiletries

I love wandering around foreign supermarkets (heck, I love wandering around supermarkets in the UK too - I'm a bit odd that way) looking for things I haven't seen before.  On this trip, I picked up a few bits and pieces which, whilst not all that interesting in themselves - they're things like shower gel and deodorants - are different enough from the stuff I can get in the UK to have made me want them.

Here we go:

 Shower gels.  Rhubarb and custard!  Seriously, why can't we get rhubarb scented products in the UK? Whilst I'm the first to admit I don't really care for fruity scents, as soon as I saw this one, I flipped and had to buy it.  It smells, almost precisely like rhubarb and custard flavoured boiled sweets.  I love it.  And hey, rhubarb is a vegetable.  So there.  I also bought the vanilla and pain d'epices scented variety.  A creamy smelling shower gel complete with tiny bits of "gingerbread" in the formulation, this smells good enough to eat.  I won't though.  But it's tempting.

Yeah, I went a bit crazy buying deodorants.  I'm an idiot and had forgotten to pack one, so when I spotted these, in scents difficult to find in the UK, I had to pick them up.  From left to right we have an amber scent, a vanilla scent, and a green tea and mint. I can't believe no one makes an amber scented deodorant in the UK, it's a beautiful soft-smelling deodorant, which will layer beautifully with any number of my perfumes this winter.  I bought the vanilla because hey!  Who doesn't want pits that smell of cake?  And the mint one?  Well, I go a bit wibbly when it comes to body-products that smell of mint, so this one just had to come home with me.  It'll pair wonderfully with my Guerlain Herba Fresca perfume.  Might be one to save for the warmer months though.

Cotton wool.  I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to cotton wool, surprisingly.  I have to have pads, and they have to be embossed ones.  I find them so much better to use than just plain smooth cotton wool, especially when it comes to removing nail varnish.  Embossed cotton wool just seems to work better with liquids, and smooth cotton wool works better for creams and lotions in my experience.

Here you can see the edges of the pads are bonded - slightly - and you have both a smooth and a rougher side.  I may have accidentally bought four packs of this back ...  

Anything caught your eye?

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