Caudalie Polyphenol C15 Skincare

 

 

By Luke

It is with some irony that I write this with one mother of a hangover. Despite the warnings, I am partial to a glass or five of wine, and hang the consequences. So, imagine my delight when I read the press information for the new skincare range from super affordable (and rather excellent) skincare brand Caudalie on how damaging the effects of everyday living - and that includes alcohol consumption – are to ones face. It is especially ironic as Caudalie have based pretty much their entire ethos on the benefits of the antioxidant polyphenol from the grape seed. Clearly our priorities with regards to the use of the grape are at some odds here. 

Notwithstanding that (and my imminent vow to never drink again) I am pleased to tell you about the new skincare line Caudalie have added to their ranks, Polyphenol C15. As mentioned earlier, Caudalie use Polyphenol in a stabilized form derived from grape seed. Polyphenol, as you may well be wondering about it, is one of the most powerful antioxidant ingredients from the plant world. Allegedly about 70% of ageing is the result of free radical action on the skin, a result of all sorts of things like a hectic lifestyle, alcohol, smoking and sunshine, polyphenol can a pretty useful tool in the arsenal against ageing. Up to now they have used the antioxidant ingredient on its own, but have just developed a vitamin C complex that is stable enough to mix with hyaluronic acid.

Vitamin C is typically a fragile ingredient, and is notoriously difficult to get it to remain active in a pot of cream. Often vitamin c products are presented in a slightly unusual way, with a separate powder, or capsule of the ingredient. Because, once exposed to the environment, once it is out there it breaks down very quickly, and becomes ineffective. The benefits of vitamin c on the skin are numerous, and these include a brightening quality, and an ability to fight oxidisation, which is a main culprit in the skin ageing process. So trying to keep the little sucker alive long enough to be effective in a face cream has always been a bit of a challenge. Caudalie are now claiming to have cracked that.

There are three products in the range: Anti Wrinkle Defence Serum, Day Fluid, and an Eye Cream. I have been using these for a good few weeks now, and am happy to say they are all really good, and actually seem to have made a visible difference to my skin. 

I love the serum in particular, as it’s just heavy enough to nourish my dry skin. It smells great as well, as you’d expect from most Caudalie products, but this time it is not the traditional Fleur du Vin scent, but it has more of a cucumber-y sort of minty smell. It does a good job of providing a certain amount of ‘plumping’, but mainly it seemed to add a clarity to my skin that wasn’t there before. Redness has died down, and my skin looks a little more even. Perhaps it was counteracting the effects of alcohol, I don’t know. What’s more, it is a very acceptable £35.

The Anti Wrinkle Protect Fluid is also an excellent moisturiser, for £29. I have said many times before, that I am extremely fussy when it comes to moisturiser as I have very dry skin, and I was sceptical about a fluid texture. Normally, anything on the ‘oil free’ end of the market is not nearly nourishing enough for me, but this was actually pleasantly surprising in its moisturisation qualities. Perhaps it was with the benefit of the serum underneath that made it this way, but nonetheless, it did seem to do the job, and with a broad spectrum (UVA and UVB) SPF of 20 to stave off any potential environmental damage (as well as the aforementioned Vitamin c and Polyphenol) it was a real pleasure to use.

Finally, the Anti Wrinkle Eye & Lip Cream, which is £26. I am not a fan of eye cream per se, as to be perfectly honest (and borderline boastful), I don’t have dark circles, even with a hangover – sorry about that! – and wrinkles around my eyes are not really a concern of mine. As such, I tend not to use one, unless I am suffering from dry eye in which case I will grab whatever is nearest to try and rectify this.

Despite that, this was a nice eye cream. It is not earthshakingly amazing, but then eye creams rarely are in my opinion. It was light, and disappeared easily, has no fragrance and it didn’t sting my eyes, so it was a thumbs up from me. The added bonus of being to use it around the lip area as well, an often neglected area of visible ageing, was a coup. It also contains the latest wonder ingredient Matrixyl 3000 which apparently boosts collagen synthesis. I couldn’t really see any difference in my eyes to be honest, but then as I said, what’s to notice. Definitely worth investing in if you like the rest of the range.

Overall, I am mightily impressed by this, not least from the price perspective. So if you are on the lookout for an accessible anti ageing range, you’d have look quite hard to find one as good as this in my opinion. 

Caudalie C15 is available from www.caudalie.co.uk and they also have a gorgeous brand new boutique on Monmouth Street in Covent Garden.

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Colour Wow - Root Coverup.

By Get Lippie

Inside this rather unassuming little black monolith is one of the bestest, most amazingest, most belovedest products I discovered in 2013.  It would have been one of my products of the year (if not the product of the year) if I wasn't such an idiot.  Part of the reason it's taken so long to get this review together is because I have a hairdresser extraordinaire in Jack Howard, and, as such, I rarely suffer from grey roots.

For a cosmetic for covering up grey roots is what this is, and it's pretty bloody amazing at it.  I've been going grey since I was 18, and without the help of hair dye I'm pretty much a badger.  It's all stripy, I have grey temples, and a grey streak through the front, but most of the rest of my hair is as nature (and Jack Howard) intended.  Now, whilst I have the utmost envy and admiration for those who embrace their grey in full, as it can and frequently does look simply beautiful, I'm simply not ready yet to embrace my inner grey goddess.  I have enough trouble embracing both my inner accountant and control freaks, there's simply no room left for anything else in here ...

Er ... anyhoo ... Colour Wow is a root cover-up that comes in six shades (Light/medium and dark browns, black, and there are also two blonde shades: Blonde and Platinum), the one above is medium brown, and you can see it's had a lot of use.  As it's a powder, it's super easy to use,  you simply load up the brush with the powder, then paint it on to your grey hair, then presto!  No more roots till you wash your hair again!  For a cackhanded badgermuppet like myself, it's foolproof.

And here's the results.  First of all, the grey at my temples, in both normal daylight and with flash:

Pretty grody, huh?  Here's the same part of my hair after a 30 second application of Colour Wow:

Coverage isn't quite 100%, but this is because I've been using medium brown rather than dark, but I can live with that.  Best of all, it looks like hair.  It doesn't dull your roots like coloured dry shampoo can, it doesn't drop (it has a kind of static charge*, so it clings to your hair, not your scalp), and wonderfully, it doesn't leave your bathroom looking like an abattoir.  Also, it doesn't run in the rain, trust me, I've tried it ...

It's wonderful for extending the life of your most recent hair colour for a couple of weeks, and as such, it'll pay for itself over the course of a year.  Hair dye, even home hair dye, doesn't work out cheap over 12 months. If you use a home dye every six weeks over the course of a year that'll cost you around £90, but if you can move to using it every 8 weeks with this, that'll cost you £65 (assuming your dye costs around £10, that is), saving you around £25.   Colour Wow costs £28.50 from SpaceNK, so, in technical terms, this actually costs you £3.50 for a years worth of colouring-in.

The blonde powders are really quite something, as they'll actually cover up the dark roots and make them blend in with the rest of your blonde, which is rather astonishing when you think about it.  All the shades are pretty multi-dimensional, not just a flat matte shade, which makes them more realistic on your hair. I think the light brown would work well for redheads, even though there isn't a specific auburn cover-up, which is a shame) I find they last on me till the next wash (bear in mind, I don't wash my hair every day though), so this packet, which I've had for the best part of a year now, has lasted extremely well.  

Colour me (you see what I did there?) extremely impressed.  And better groomed as a result. 

Colour Wow.  Don't be an idiot like me, if you dye your hair, go out and get some now.  It's a fairly hefty initial investment, but if it stops you having to dye your hair as often, it's worth it, believe me.

So yeah, product of the year, 2013.  And still a front runner for 2014 too, now I come to think of it ...


* I am not a scientist.  I met one once though.

The Fine Print: PR Sample
 
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Nuxe Prodigieux le Parfum and Parfum Divin de Caudalie

 By Get Lippie

Those two great French skincare competitors, Nuxe and Caudalie, have both brought out perfume versions of their cult body oil products this summer, and I managed to get my hands on both so I could compare and contrast each of them.

Nuxe is probably the cult body oil product in the UK, and this summer, the iconic rectangular bottle has been re-issued with a cute limited edition design,  which I surprisingly rather like.  The perfume bottle is a flat oblong with a bronzed ombre effect over.  It looks rather staid in comparison to the limited edition bottle though, I think!  

The scent is warm, redolent of jasmine and sunshine, with a small hit of coconut. It actually has a rather sunscreen-y scent, instantly transporting you to a beach and the tropical cocktail of your choice.  On first spraying, it is intensely heady and rather strong-seeming, but this headiness wears off rather quickly, just leaving a floral-musk skin scent behind, which is rather nuzzly and lovely.  It's very discreet in wear, you're not going to offend any perfume-phobics in the office in this one.  

In comparison with the scent of the oil itself, it holds up very well indeed - on first sniff, they're practically identical - the oil has a more rounded profile, and because of the oil base it's less sharp-seeming than the parfum, which feels a little thinner than the original formulation.  That said the two are to all intents completely indistinguishable from each other.  Lasting power for the fragrance, even though it's a parfum formulation, is around 4-6 hours, but as it wears very close to the skin, sometimes you'll have to hunt for the scent whilst you're wearing it.  Nuxe Prodigieux le Parfum costs £43 for 50mls.

Packaging is, for me, a very important part of any product, and hands down the Caudalie bottles win this particular context.  Not only is the circular shape of the oil bottle easier to handle (I struggle with the flat rectangle of the Nuxe, owing to having very small hands, and the bottle is too wide for me to grip properly in use), but the metallic ombre effect on the Parfum Divin bottle is quite, quite lovely.  I also like the wooden lids, which add just a little extra touch of luxury and texture to the overall presentation.

Divine oil is just a couple of years old, but has spawned a couple of offshoot products already - a body scrub, and Divine Legs, which is a lightly tinted body moisturiser - and the perfume is a natural extension.  A lighter, fresher, fragrance than the Nuxe Prodigieux. In comparison, Parfum Divin has an almost cucumber-y ozonic scent, atop a base of blonde woods, cedar and white flowers.  I can catch a hint of jasmine here, but it's far less punchy than in the Nuxe. It dries down to a more woody skin-scent than the Nuxe, but they are both somewhat on the discreet side, and dry down to a gentle inoffensiveness.

Whilst less initially heady than the Nuxe fragrance, it's actually a slightly more sophisticated scent overall, being more redolent of a spa than a sunscreen,  but it does still manage to smell almost exactly like the original product, in the same way.  Again, the fragrance is a little sharper, and a little fresher than the oil, but this is down to the formulation, as an oil fragrance will always seem a little "fatter" to the nose, than an alcohol-based spray. The lasting power for both fragrances is about the same. Parfum Divin de Caudalie will be available for £39 for 50ml when it launches shortly.  There's a candle version of the fragrance too, which really, really, really needs to join my candle collection, tbh.

So, do you need both fragrances?  Probably not, to be honest.  Both the fragrances are wonderful companions to their respective oils, being respectful recreations of the originals, and they're both wonderful for layering over the oils for a little extra oomph (the oils will anchor the fragrances to your skin, making them last longer), but which one you prefer will depend on which oil you have a preference for.  I can't actually pick a winner - the Nuxe is a cult product for a reason, it smells great, and is instantly evocative, but, the Caudalie is sophisticated, and (for me) a better bottle.  Which one do you prefer?

The Fine Print: PR Samples.  But I'm ordering a candle, oh yes.  No, I am NOT obsessed.
 
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Beauty Project at Selfridges

By Tindara

If you’re into beauty and its associated pleasures it can’t have escaped your notice that Selfridges has something rather special going on at the moment. The Beauty Project started on the 1 May and continues till 12 June. I went along for a sneak preview on Thursday morning and not only are there plenty of new launches and limited editions; there are lots of interesting events planned; poetry workshops and advice from some of the most knowledgeable in the business, as well as serious debate and discussion. Subjects include aging, body image, self-esteem, sexual stereotyping, tattooing and body modification with the likes of two of my favourites, beauty guru Sali Hughes, and psychotherapist and campaigner Susie Orbach, as well as countless other big-hitters. 

 

There are also interesting collaborations with artists, Jo Malone are working with London studio collective Calm and Collected who are live screen-printing in store to decorate a suite of bottles. Their sketchbooks and inspiration boards are also on show and it’s great to see how their designs have developed. Acqua di Parma have also worked with artists to produce some beautiful limited edition hand painted lids for their Blu Mediterraneo collection. Bobbi Brown have launched Art Sticks with giant pencils about the place, and MAC have their full range displayed in giant lipstick storage too. I love a massive lipstick or eye pencil. Reminds me of my days as a window dresser in Boots. My office was full of giant lipsticks and enormous fake perfume bottles. Sigh.

For those of you against cosmetic surgery but interested in softening the signs of aging, Spa Junkie has recently unveiled her new venture, the Face Gym, which works on the premise of exercising the face in the same way that you would the body. There are also a couple of Fingers 2 Go manicure machines that paint nail art directly onto fingernails or stick on falsies then and there. There are hundreds of designs to choose from and you can even print a selfie or group friend shot onto your nails. I predict groups of teenage girls going mad for them.

In short, lot of fabulous new products and a fascinating series of events. I’ll be at ‘Sali Hughes: Beauty, Good Or Bad For Our Body Image?’ And may even do some shopping. Join me! Have a look at the programme and get down there

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Nikki Lissoni

  
By Get Lippie

We like a bit of bling here at Get Lippie, and Nikki Lissoni is a brand of mix and match jewellery that we were introduced to recently.  Now, anyone who knows the story of how I ended up with an accidental collection of FIVE engagement rings (chronicled here, and here) knows that I'm both a bit of a magpie, and that I am cursed with obsessive-compulsive collecting tendencies, so a new range of collectible jewellery?  Oh, I am SO in.

The Nikki Lissoni range is quite simple, it is essentially a collection of coins, which you use to accessorise a range of coin holders, either in necklaces, bracelets, or earrings.  All the coins come in silver, yellow and rose gold, as do the coin holders and chains.  So you can have a yellow-gold coin in a silver surround on a rose-gold chain if you wanted to, or go slightly more restrained with  a more monochrome look.  I am not generally known for my restraint, so I picked a silver chain with a silver coin and a rose gold surround.

The lockets open a bit like a pocket watch, allowing for really easy swapping of coins, but they feel very secure in wear too - I've barely taken mine off since I got it, and it's never yet fallen open. 

There are three sizes of coins, what you're seeing here is a medium silver (it's around the size of a £2 coin) tribal heart piece. The large size is perfect for a big statement piece, and the smaller is lovely for something more discreet.   

As well as silver, gold and rose gold, there is also a selection of swarovski crystal coins, and some natural gemstone coins too.  What follows is just a small selection of the Nikki Lissoni collection which is currently available:

 

See anything that catches your eye?  Me, I'm gonna be picking myself up a swarovski-encrusted pendant and coin ASAP. Prices are extremely reasonable, beginning at around £20 or so.  You can find Nikki Lissoni jewellery online, or at independent jewellers around the country.

The Fine Print: The Tribal Heart necklace featured in this post was a press sample.

Also: Pictures for this post were taken with a Nokia Lumia 1020 lent to me by Microsoft.

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Zao Organic Makeup

If you are anything like me, the mere mention of words such as ‘organic’ and ‘natural’ where makeup is concerned will send your eyes rolling so far into the back of your head they may never return to their normal position. However, sceptical as I am, I recently tried out Zao Makeup following its Highly Commended accolade in the Natural Beauty Awards this year. 

Fact is, until about 5 or so years ago because of all those nasty scare stories about such things as parabens in the Daily Mail and the like that sent the whole cosmetic buying public into an unnecessary frenzy, we really were quite happy with the selection of overly perfumed, and anything-but-the-essence-of-nature beauty products. Since then a whole slew of brands have come out that claim to have been untouched almost by human hands. That the angels themselves (who dine exclusively on pulses and the leaves of trees, of course) have fashioned together the purest and most chemically unadulterated makeup and skincare, which is free from practically everything. I am exaggerating somewhat here, but you get the drift.

However, in the so doing, alongside their zeal to appear not only to fix your dry skin, or colour your face, they occasionally removed all the ingredients that in fact made the products WORK! There were some shocking textures, and colours out there were there not?

“Why yes! It does feel like six day old porridge on my face, but at least I’m not getting any nasties into my system, and thank god it only lasts a maximum of 3 minutes otherwise the sheer joy of trying to scrape this unrefined goop onto my suffering skin 1000 times a day so you could actually see it would be totally lost!” You know the score ...

Well, mercifully there have been several improvements and some attention to details such as lasting power and texture over the last few years, and most of the brands have really upped their game as far as their efforts at claims of being ‘natural’. 

Zao, the new cosmetics brand, available from www.zaomakeup.co.uk I had not heard of at all, till they got in touch, I have to say.

It arrived in these very neat little cotton type bags, fuelling my initial pre conception that again, we were going to be looking at a bit of hippy style makeup. Upon opening them up, a loud ‘Oooooohh’ issued from my lips as the packaging is rather beautiful Bamboo. Not bamboo effect, but actual bamboo chosen for its ecologically sound growth rate and sustainability over say, wood. Almost all of the products incidentally, are refillable also, so points here for being ecologically minded.

To be clear on this, I asked only to see the products that I KNOW are notoriously difficult to get right in a ‘natural makeup’ context, and these would be foundation, lipstick, and mascara.

Firstly, I didn’t receive a foundation, but a compact powder. Fair enough, as I know these can sometimes fall prey to the slightly ropey end of the spectrum too. What can I tell you about this? It’s a powder. Designed to take away shine, is talc free and has a whole host of other ingredients in it that read like an Ottolenghi cook book. One of the most interesting here is Silver. Actual silver. This runs through the entire range incidentally (save for a couple of products such as nail colours) as a natural preservative. Silver I know also has some antiseptic properties so would be a good addition in principle. It goes on well although my only concern would be to use sparingly for fear of looking a little dusty. Overall, not a bad powder by any stretch.

Next up was the mascara. Again in this rather lovely bamboo covering, the Structuring Mascara has a very nice, small precise looking wand, and the formula is not too wet, and not too thick or dry.

Containing Acacia senegal gum to grip onto the lashes, and give it flexibility, and avocado oil to nourish, when on this took a while to dry. So if you use this, be aware of looking up too soon, and save yourself a job of getting it off the top of your eye area there. Getting it off was easy, and there were no reports of any of it falling off, or flaking either. It comes in two colours, black and brown.

Now the lipstick. I asked specifically for a matte lipstick, a) because there are not that many out there, and b) I was interested to see how a ‘natural’ brand would approach this. So, firstly, and call me picky, but the matte lipstick, is not matte. It is a creamy texture, meaning that it has some shine to it, not a lot, but some nonetheless. The colour I used was No 462, or ‘Old Pink’ as it says on the website. A SUPERB colour for a very subtle coat with a hint of pink in it. Would easily suit the most fussy of natural lip colour seekers, and felt really rather good. It lasted as well, is opaque, and was a very pleasant surprise!  The lipstick contains silver, as mentioned earlier, and also has cocoa butter, and pomegranate in it to nourish and also moisturise.

Overall, I am mightily impressed with Zao. The products I saw were of a very high standard, and were pretty much as described. For a brand that claims to be a natural brand, I would be happy to use this on anyone, without fear of having to retouch every five minutes, and also for anyone that is concerned about the contents of their makeup, I can recommend giving Zao a go. 

The website has been translated from the original French in a rather literal fashion, which can bring a smile to your face too ...

Zao makeup is available from www.zaomakeup.co.uk

The Fine Print: PR Samples
 
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Max Factor Clump Defy Mascara

By Laurin

My favourite mascara ever is any mascara I’ve been using for about six weeks. The purchase of a new make-up item brings with it a flutter of excitement in my stomach, and yet my heart never fails to sink when I open a new tube of mascara. Why? Because I know I’m about to spend five god-damned minutes that I don’t even have wiping the brush unless I want to arrive in my office looking like the victim of an unfortunate tarantula attack on the Victoria Line. It takes me about a month of jiggery-pokery and wand acrobatics to use up enough product for a perfect application straight from the tube, only to find one morning four weeks later that it’s magically fused into a solid lump of black gunk overnight. Ain’t nobody got time for that. 

These are not cheap products. At the time of writing, I estimate that I have at least £100 of unsatisfactory mascaras in my make-up drawer, all paid for with money I earned myself. Current rejects include Bobbi Brown Extreme Party Mascara, Benefit They’re Real! (also: stop using tits to sell me eyelash paint), Estee Lauder Sumptuous Extreme and yes, Estee Lauder Double Wear, which has singlehandedly ruined many a rocking smoky eye.

And yet, I dream. I dream of a day when I shall open a new tube of mascara, gently wave the wand across my eyes and gaze back in the mirror at my thick, fluttering, perfectly separated lashes. “Darling,” my husband Michael Fassbender calls from the next room, “do come back to bed and – “ Oh, are you still here? Hi!

Anyway. I am pleased to report that my dreams have come true (my mascara-related dreams, that is). I’d never heard of Max Factor Clump Defy until Superdrug re-launched it as part of a limited edition best sellers range to celebrate their 50^th anniversary. It is genuinely the best mascara I’ve ever tried, at any price point. The short, tightly-packed bristles (pictured below) means it comes out of the tube with exactly the right amount of product on it, which is to say, not very much at all.

As you can see, the brush is slightly curved, enabling it to cover more lashes in one sweep. Below, you can see my lashes with no mascara at all, and with one coat of Clump Defy (I’ve also used my Shu Uemera Eyelash Curlers before applying). 

I normally apply three coats of mascara, and you can see below the effects of two and three coats of Clump Defy. There isn’t a huge amount of difference, so you could probably skip the third coat.

If you hurry, you can pick up the limited edition dotty pink packaging, which I love because it makes finding this in my make-up bag a cinch. After all, the more time I save on my make-up routine, the longer I can spend in bed with my husband, Michael Fassbender.

Max Factor Clump Defy Mascara is available at Superdrug in limited edition packaging for £7.99 at the time of writing.

The Fine Print - PR Sample

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