British Gas Safe & Secure Trial

This is a non-beauty-related post, and I'm making no apologies.  As part of an official partnership with British Gas Smarter Living this year, I'm here today to talk about my 6 month trial of their Safe & Secure home security system, and this is my first blog post in an occasional series.

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Having lived in shared and rented accommodation for years, home security hasn’t always been a high priority of mine, but after a harrowing experience in a flat last year, being offered a chance to review a security system such as “Safe & Secure” by British Gas has been a bit of a godsend.

For a time last winter, I was unable to leave my home unattended at any point. Owing to a rogue landlord, we had to have our friends and family flat-sit during the day, and have friends over at the weekends so we could go and do our shopping.  Needless to say, we soon got out of that situation, but I’m aware that if Safe and Secure had existed back then, our lives – and those of our friends – would have been a lot easier!

Safe and Secure enables you to leave your home in total assurance that if anything goes wrong, you’ll be made aware of it, and be able to take action.  Controlled via either the internet, or via an app on your smartphone, it’s simple enough for even this technophobe beauty-blogger to be able to figure out. You can protect your doors, your windows, have a smoke detector, get motion detectors, control key electrical equipment via a “smart plug”, and monitor just who is in your home at any time.  Handy for control freaks (me), and nosy people (also me) alike.

I’m not going to lie, there’s been some hiccups along the way recently, but British Gas have been made aware of where they’ve gone wrong (nearly getting my security system stolen because their courier company – since fired - screwed up, is the most amusing, however infuriating it was at the time), and they’ve promised me that they’ll make no more mistakes.  That said, I’ve made some mistakes too, and I’m certain that my neighbours haven’t quite forgiven me for the day my siren went off five times in an hour because I’d overlooked something very simple indeed, but these are stories for another time. I look forward to finding out how well everything works over the coming months.

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You can find out more about my journey with British Gas, Safe & Secure and Smarter Living if you click this link. 

The Fine Print:  I'm an official spokesperson of the  British Gas "Don't Take Our Word For It" campaign.  

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

Dolce & Gabbana Passion Duo Gloss Fusion Lipstick in Rose

Sometimes you accidentally find yourself in Harrods, wanting a treat.

As is perfectly natural, you find yourself drifting towards the beauty hall.

Dolce & Gabbana call your name.  Well, not literally, after last time you went to their counter, anyway, but you  know what I mean.

What falls into your sticky little fingers is a new "passion duo", a fusion of colour and balm, designed to keep lips hydrated whilst wearing colour.

Packaged in the D&G signature embossed gold, these are definitely a touch of luxury in your makeup bag.

I selected the shade rose, which is a good, wearable everyday neutral:

The lipstick is creamy and well pigmented, the balm in this has a slight purple tone, and appears to have a hint of microgllitter in it.

It doesn't feel at all gritty on the lips though, and feels very hydrating in wear.  Whilst possibly not as hydrating as my beloved Chantecaille Lip Chics, these are a little more pigmented:

So, what treats have fallen into your life, recently?

The Fine Print: Purchase.  I'm not to be left alone in Harrods in charge of a debit card EVER again.  Or at least until after the wedding.
 
This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.

My Tiny Hermes Collection

My Hermes fragrance collection is small, and almost perfectly formed, at least, for my purposes, anyway.   I didn't realise I really liked the scents of Hermes so much until recently.  I've long been a fan of Eau d'Orange Vert, which is a minty-orange cologne, meant more for men, but I find it to be a very refreshing scent on hot summer days.  Sadly, it doesn't last nearly long enough.

Eau de Pamplemousse Rose is an effervescent sparkling pink grapefruit scent which is the latest addition to my Hermes collection, it's light, refreshing, fruity and simply marvellous for repeated sprays on hot days.  It's not a complicated scent, but it's not sickeningly sweet and it's very enjoyable to wear.  I'm loving it.

I bought Un Jardin Sur Le Nil after reading The Perfect Scent by Chandler Burr, which takes the story of Jean Claude Ellena's creation of this scent, and makes you long to smell it for yourself.  It's a fabulous and fascinating book, which if you get a chance to read, and you're at all interested in fragrance, you should grab it with both hands.  Fair warning, you will end up buying Un Jardin Sur Le Nil and a bottle of Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker as a result of reading the book though.  That said, I find I have less of a connection with this mango-drenched scent than I do with the others.  It's very nice, but ... I don't love it.

Finally we have Voyage d'Hermes in perfume format.  This is an icy-cool fragrance, which has had me and MrLippie fighting over who gets to wear it on particular days. It has rose and amber, underneath a citrus-spicy (cardomom and juniper, mainly) opening, which is hard to resist.  It's hard to say why we like this so much - once it dries down a bit, it smells rather like an expensive barber shop, warm and a little soapy, but luxurious with it - but this one is very definitely back-up worthy.  It's rather sexy, too, in an understated kind of way.

I now want Eau des Merveilles to round out my little collection - I tried some on my skin the other day, and the salty dry-down is simply gorgeous.

All these Hermes fragrances are a little more "diaphanous" than my usual fragrance choices - I usually prefer darker, more heady fragrances, but I'm definitely coming to appreciate the "less is more" approach of Jean Claude Ellena these days.

The Fine Print: Mixture of PR Samples and purchases.
 
This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.

Lush Emotional Brilliance - Sophisticated and Passionate

Press releases, by and large, irritate me hugely, so I rarely read them.  I skim the title, take a look at the brand,  and if it's one I'm interested in, I check the prices and availability, then throw the release away. Part of it is a desire to come to a product "cold", as a normal consumer would, and part of it is because, several times a day, press releases make me want to claw my eyes out of my head.  I happen to like my eyes, so I delete press releases as a matter of self-protection.

Lush, bless them, are brilliant at irritating press releases, and the release for Emotional Brilliance is no exception, from the second I read it, I simply was not interested in the product.  Emotional Brilliance is based upon colour therapy, whereby you go into a store, spin the colour wheel and then pick out the first three colours that appeal to you.  So far, so ... good?   

But, apparently, the colours are meant to represent your state of mind.  There's a whole heap of guff about what colours mean what, and how colour-therapy will help your state of mind, and aspirations, needs and strengths yadda, yadda, yadda.  Now, I don't mind colour-therapy in itself (my mum is a practitioner, remind me to tell you the story of why she's a Reiki Master, one day), some colours can cheer you up, or depress you, etc, but this strikes me as a hugely impractical way to buy cosmetics.  Sometimes, you just want a red lipstick.  Or a pink lipstick.  Or a taupe eyeshadow, and does it matter if those choices represent ... something a marketing department has decided it represents?

Anyhoo.  More fool me for ignoring this particular press release, because the Lush Emotional Brilliance products (Lush decided to send some to me regardless of my disdain for their release, because they are lovely folk, unlike your good and rather cynical self) are really decidedly fab.  Well, some of them are, anyway.  These two, in particular, I love.  

Sophisticated eyeshadow (meaning: "have style", according to the label) is a taupe shade, and most of you should know that I'm a sucker for taupe.  Passionate lipstick (meaning: "feel strongly"), is a glorious glowing pink with just a hint of blue duochrome.  I'm also a sucker for pinks at the moment.  It's like Lush know me better than I know myself, or something.

The products are cutely packaged in glass apothecary-style "dropper" bottles, which I really like (although, the doe-foot applicator in the lipstick feels very loose, in all honesty), and they apply well.  The eyeshadows contain glycerine which makes them easy to blend out, and I find it lasts very well, without fading for around six or seven hours.

The lipstick contains rose wax, and is exceptionally pigmented.  Whilst I don't find it particularly moisturising, it doesn't dry my lips out, and it wears very well indeed.  It also fades to a stain quite nicely too.  I don't find that the short dropper-style handle makes the product that easy to apply, it's a little too short, but it does work.  This shade is the most-complimented lipstick I've worn this year, btw.  Surprised me too.

So, what have I learned from Emotional Brilliance?  Well, it's that sometimes a good product can be done a disservice by a bad press release ...The products cost £14.50 each, which I think is slightly on the pricey side, to be honest, but they are great shades (in the main), and all are vegan-friendly.


The Fine Print: Unexpected - and unrequested - press samples.  Featured only because they outperformed my expectations.  They also sent a pea-green eyeliner, which will never grace this page.  Make of that what you will.

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

Estee Lauder Pure Colour Polishes in Viper, Explosif and Blue Blood

I do love an Estee Lauder polish (or three). Lauder, since the addition of Tom Pechaux to their creative team, are really knocking it out of the park at the moment, and the Pure Colour polishes have just released two new fabulous mini-collections of five polishes each: Beyond Black, and Metal Mania.

Here we have two Beyond Blacks, with a Metal Mania in the middle.  The shades are (L-R) Viper, Explosif, and Blue Blood.

I adore the Pure Colour bottles, yes, they're big, and very bulky, but they're also very beautiful.  Little drops of pigment suspended like teardrops in their crystal cubes, they're a unique and love addition to any makeup collection. 

Now, onto the shades themselves, the Beyond Black collection is, as the name might suggest, a collection of blackened shades with deep rich colours within, and the Metal Mania is a collection of foils with micro-glitter, to give a very on-trend look this autumn.

Depending on the light, you can see a variety of effects in the polishes, here you can just see the blackened effects of Viper and Blue Blood, and Explosif looks like an antique gold glitter.

Here you can see a bit more of the differences between Viper and Blue Blood

And this picture really shows off the stunning range of shades of glitter that you can see in Explosif:

As is pretty usual with Lauder polishes, they wear like iron, I've had a full manicure of Blue Blood on since last week, and it's stood up to the rigours of the office and housework admirably well.  I'm going to try and check out Black Plum and Smashed (metallic purple) at the earliest opportunity ...

Estee Lauder Pure Colour Metal Mania and Beyond Black polishes cost £14.50 and are available on counter now.

The Fine Print:  PR Samples. But purchases to follow.

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

Storage - Muji 5 Drawer Boxes

My quest to contain and constrain my ever-growing makeup collection continues.  As well as The Cupboard, the train case and the helmer, and the lipstick corral, I recently acquired a couple of five-drawer units from Muji for my eyeshadow palettes, and some treasured singles.  Somehow I can't bear the idea of depotting, even though I know it makes sense!

 Anyhoo, the pic above is two five-drawer units, piled up into one big tower.

  
There are rubber feet on the bottom of each unit, which stops them slipping around when they're piled up on each other - I wasn't too sure about the wisdom of this initially, but I've not any issues, even though I'm fairly heavy-handed.

All that said, I'm a bit disappointed with these, as the drawers are very shallow.  Whilst an excellent size, there isn't a whole heap of depth to them, meaning I couldn't cram as much into the drawers as I might have liked to.  This, possibly, won't be a problem for people who have a "normal" makeup collection (i.e. one that isn't threatening to take over their entire home), but, I think I managed to get a fair bit into the drawers.  Would you like to see?  Stupid question, I know.  Here's some quite gratuitous pictures of makeup:

This is the drawer that impressed me most - I managed to get 14 Bourjois singles, in their notoriously bulky packaging, into one drawer!

Some old, OLD, favourites.

More old favourites, and some stuff I've not used yet ...

I love these teeny Stila palettes, the Balm palettes are always wonderful, and there's an Estee Lauder travel palette in there too.  Don't think I've shown you that one yet.

A cult favourite.  Can you believe I've only used the Naked palette once?  I'm not even sure why I bought it.  Blogger frenzy (a soon-to-be medically recognised condition), I suspect.

I like a bit of Dolce & Gabbana, can you tell?  That silver Laura Mercier eyeshadow is a new - and unexpected - favourite too.

I like the juxtaposition of Bobbi Brown and Victoria's Secret in this drawer.  Victoria's Secret makeup is surprisingly good.  I'm a bit of a fan.  It's a surprise to me too, don't worry.

 The Une eyeshadow palettes are a real treat.  And I adore the New CID palette an unhealthy amount.  God knows how much I'd like it if it wasn't a mixed lip and eye palette - they annoy the bejesus out of me.  Oh, and that pink Laura Mercier eyeshadow?  Very wearable.  I've been wearing that mixed with the silver one above a lot lately.  To the office.  I'm a rebel, what can I say?

And these are two jewels of my eye collection, a full Chantecaille palette, and a Prescriptives set that was a present from a good friend.  Man, I wish they hadn't closed Prescriptives!  I still miss it.

So there you have it.  Another addition to my makeup storage.  Pretty soon, the entire flat will be full of prettily stored makeup and no room to apply it ...

The Muji Acrylic Five Drawer box is £24.95 from muji.eu.  I ordered mine online and had it - full to bursting - on my desk two days later, very impressed!


The Fine Print: Purchase.  Products featured are a mixture of purchases, PR samples and gifts.  There was some serious dusting to be done before I took these pics, I tell you ...
 
This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.

Coming Soon ...

A sneaky peek of what's coming up on Get Lippie next week.  See anything that catches your eye?

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