Storage Week! Tindara

The increasingly mis-named Storage "Week" continues (sorry about that), and today we have Tindara showing you her drawers, Wednesday has Laurin showing us her ... er ... rather unorthodox perfume collection, and Friday will bring you Pro-Makeup Artist Luke showing us how we should really do it (or not ... you decide!).  Our editor, Louise, will be showing you hers next week, as she needs some time to tidy up.  Allegedly.

Anyhoo, over to Tindara:

Recently, I’ve been binge watching Orange is the New Black. It’s fantastically entertaining, really well written and also pretty funny with some proper great female characters. And another thing that I really love about it is that those women love their beauty and want to keep doing it despite their circumstances. All the way through, though, I couldn’t help wondering how the hell they stored their contraband stuff.

I love my storage paraphanalia, and tend to go as nuts in Muji as I do in a beauty hall. Their PP storage baskets are ideal for compartmentalising your haul. I also use their acrylic storage for lipsticks and glosses etc. I even recycle old Eucerin Hyaluron Filler Concentrate lids as liner/mascara pots, they’re clear plastic circular containers that would be good for brushes too, and since I use this product all the time, I assume I will always have lots. Recycling containers is useful, don’t spend money on new when that little rectangular thing that used to house cotton buds is exactly right for all your chunky lip pens.

As you can see my dressing table is pretty crowded. All my perfume, jewellery, daily skincare, current nail polishes and this week’s make-up are piled up on here. But believe it or not, it’s in some order. My fave things are my Muji clear jewellery box and the knock off Eames hang-it-all for my necklaces. Clearly, I need a larger dressing table; I’m working on it, but I’m also really fussy and am waiting for the perfect vintage piece to turn up. In the mean time, the drawers are pretty organised.

The first is blushers, lipsticks, eyeliners and mascaras.

The second is skincare and perfume samples, beauty tools, essential oils, glitters, eyeshadows, nail polishes and wraps.

The third drawer contains, glasses paraphanalia, hair accessories and brushes, and scarves.

I also have an excellent IKEA Lillangen tall slim bathroom cupboard in my hall with more Muji acrylic storage dividers inside for hair and body products, hair dryers and straightening/curling irons, brushes and rollers etc.  My husband gets a shelf here and a little more room in the small bathroom cabinet that has a few travel size toiletries, tweezers, wax strips, stuff I might need in the bathroom basically. Dunelm Mill do a great extendable bathroom caddy for shampoos and shower gels and we also have this in our bathroom. By my bed I have night creams oils and balms and a bag containing all my mani/pedi tools.

And that’s about it. My dream is a bathroom with amazing floor to ceiling storage built in. One day, grasshopper, one day. In the meantime I have a ‘mid century chest of drawers with mirror’ alert on ebay and a serious Muji habit.

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Storage Week! Nails ...

We're a nosy bunch here at Get Lippie, so when we were mulling over makeup storage recently, our editor requested - nay, demanded - we all get out collections out for the lads, as it were.  So this week, sit back and enjoy perving over total strangers' makeup collections.  On the internet.

We're kicking the week off with Emily, our nail-obsessed newest addition to the team:

Disaster struck this week in the form of me returning to the gym for the first time in FOREVER and donning my boxing gloves again. Of course I had forgotten that long nails and boxing don't mix and an hour later I had broken pretty much every goddam nail, resulting in me having to cut them incredibly short.

I KNEW exercise was bad for you.

So, while my nails are pretty much out of action I thought I'd share my DIY nail storage solution with you. Now, my collection isn't HUGE (yet) but probably bigger than average and I got rather fed up with various boxes and bottles lying around my flat and never being able to find the colour I wanted. IKEA came to the rescue in the form of this set of storage drawers, which of course I painted in pretty pastels and embellished with pearls. Because, why not?

I have a drawer for everything: cotton wool and buds (the pointy ended ones which are great for tidying up), a multitude of files, clippers and such like and then one for nail stickers and embellishments. I used to travel to Japan for work a lot and always paid a visit to Tokyo Hands (AKA - the best shop in the world) to stock up on cute nail stickers...these doggy and rabbit ones are my favourites, I can't bring myself to actually use them.

The middle drawers house my nail art pens, brushes and larger sets (such as Ciate's awesome if short-lived Caviar and Velvet manicure sets) and then finally the bottom drawer houses all my polishes, in colour order, from reds through to glitters and top-coats. Geeky I know but it means I can find the colour I'm after pretty quickly!

So that's my DIY nail storage solution...though i'm pretty sure I'm going to need a bigger box sometime soon!  How do you store your nail goodies?

Emily

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Everyday Essentials: Dove Advanced Hair Series - Pure Care Dry Oil

By Get Lippie

I just can't get that excited about expensive hair care, I'm afraid. Give me a £36 lipstick, or a £250 perfume, and I can justify that to myself (not so much my bank manager, admittedly), but a £30 shampoo?  Something that just goes down the drain?  Man, I have a hard time thinking about that.  Ironically, a £20 shower gel (something else that just gets sluiced away), I can get excited about.  Rational?  Logical?  Not really, but, you know, no one ever became a beauty blogger because they were entirely rational about things.

Anyhoo, Dove have recently released their Advanced Hair Series, in three different types.  Oxygen Moisture for creating volume in fine, flat hair, Youthful Vitality for  ... er ... more mature hair types and Pure Care Dry Oil which gives moisture and nourishment to dry and treated hair.  I've been using the Pure Care Dry Oil range for a little while now, and it ticks all my haircare boxes, cheap (£5.99 to £9.99 at the time of writing) simple, and - most importantly - effective.

There's a whole bunch of science behind the Dove Advanced Hair series, which I had explained to me, and now can't remember, but essentially, what it boils down to is that Dove spend a lot on their R&D, and in this range, it shows.  In the Pure Care range, there's a shampoo, conditioner, mask and an oil.

You know how some shampoos leave your hair really rough during washing, and you desperately need conditioner to smooth it back down again?  Well, I've found that washing with the Dove Dry oil shampoo leaves my hair really soft, and feeling like it has already been conditioned.  As my hair currently has plans to take over the planet in this humidity, I've never tried not using the conditioner (anything to keep it tamed, ANYTHING), but I find that the shampoo and conditioner together definitely leave my hair soft and shiny, and less frizzy than usual.  The mask is good too for those weeks when my hair is dryer than usual.  I love the oil, I use it every time I wash, as it's perfect for those of us with slightly unruly locks, it beats down frizz, and helps keep things under control.

Infused with pomegranate and macademia oils, the range has an unexpectedly beige formula which is refreshing in this age of pearlised white haircare formulas, and it has a pleasant and (in the nicest possible way) inoffensive scent which won't clash with any of your body products or fragrances.

So yes, cheap and cheerful and effective, what more could you want in your shampoo?

The Fine Print: PR samples initially, but repurchases since.

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We Want the Funk: Ripe and Ready Perfumes for a Heatwave

By Laurin

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the predicted highs in my hometown of Mobile, Alabama and London were exactly the same – 29 degrees Celsius. The local press in Mobile referred to this turn of events as “an unseasonable autumn-like chill”. Meanwhile, in London, the headlines read “OMG HEATWAVE APOCALYPSE PREPARE A VIRGIN SACRIFICE TO APPEASE THE SUN GODS!”

In Mobile, we deal with the heat by hopping from air-conditioned house to air-conditioned car, and if we’re lucky, into backyard swimming pools. In London, our primary extreme-weather coping strategies are outrageous hyperbole and whinging. It’s one of the many ways in which I’m proud to be British.

Unfortunately, Tube travel and lack of air-conditioned buildings can take its toll on the most stringent of personal hygiene regimes. I experienced this last week as I was leaving work on an especially humid day and suddenly realised I had experienced a regrettable deodorant malfunction. Fortunately, I had a bottle of Francis Kurkdjian’s Absolue Pour Le Soir tucked away on my desk, so I was able to style out the funk with lashings of sweet honey and dirty knickers. That smell? Yeah, that’s me. What of it?

This, then is my plea to you: when the heat is on, be a lover not a fighter. Save the sunny citruses for your gin and tonic. They’ll evaporate within hours during hot weather anyway. Instead, reach for one of these out and proud animalic fragrances:

 Serge Lutens Mucs Koublai Khan, £79 for 50ml at Fenwicks of Bond Street. I can’t find it online, so you’ll just have to come to London.

This is what Frederic Malle’s Musc Ravageur would have been if it had been raised by hyenas in the jungle (note to self: find out if hyenas live in jungles; do hyenas prefer orientals to chypres?). Instead of the come-hither bedroom eyes, we have the flasher on the street corner in the stained trenchcoat. But if you’d just get past that, you’d see he’s a really nice person, okay? And as it turns out, he is. Though the unwashed combination of civet, musk and caraway is a bit seedy at first, the composition is beautifully softened out with amber, rose, patchouli and vanilla. Highly wearable, though still not suitable for a blind buy.

Le Labo Oud 27, from £45 for 15ml at http://lelabofragrances.com/uk_en/

There is no way to pretty this up: this is the filthiest porno-perfume that ever was. Although the official notes are oud, civet, cedar, patchouli, ambergris and rose (so, noble rot, cat bum, whale vomit and FLOWERS), whatever, this fragrance ain’t never seen the inside of Jane Packer in its life. Oud 27 will never turn up on your doorstep bearing a bouquet, but if you ask it nicely, it just might let you see what’s in the black bag at the bottom of the closet. Wear with a fur coat and crotchless knickers.

Robert Piguet Fracas, £95 for 50ml at www.lessenteurs.com

A big stinking heatwave calls for a big stinking flower. Creator Germaine Cellier was something of an enfant terrible of the 1940’s perfume world. In Barbara Herman’s book “Scent and Subversion”, we are told that Cellier’s first fragrance for Robert Piguet, Bandit, was inspired by the scent of models changing their underwear during fashion shows. Had I read that about her other masterpiece Fracas, I’d believe that as well. This is the Vagina Dentata of tuberoses: all soft, inviting flash with a deadly bite. Fracas is tuberose shorn of its angular, camphorous top note and instead given bombastic T&A with jasmine, rose, carnation, ripe peach and even riper musk. Wear this for taking a lover back to your web for the first (and maybe last) time.

Frederic Malle Le Parfum de Therese, from £80 for 30ml at www.lessenteurs.com

Michel Roudnitska, son of Le Parfum de Therese’s creator Edmond called this “the masterpiece of my father”. Considering that he was speaking of the man who created Rochas Femme, Diorella and Eau Savage, this is high praise indeed. Exclusively worn by Roudnitska’s wife Therese for nearly fifty years, it was only released after his death in 2000, when Frederic Malle persuaded Therese to allow him to publish it as part of his Editions de Parfums line. I hesitate to describe this as “animalic”, for it is actually a placid, watery fruit accord that preceded the fresh aquatic fragrances of the 90’s by over forty years. But laid over the plum, melon, mandarin and vetiver that forms the heart of this quietly confident work is a note of leather that transforms it from the coldly beautiful to something altogether more warm and intimate. I have no idea what the Roudnitska’s marriage was like, but when I smell the perfume he made for her, I can only imagine that this was a man who deeply loved and understood his wife. It manages to be dark and light and human and ethereal all at the same time, and I would wear it any day over the hundreds of candyfloss concoctions proclaiming themselves the essence of the eternal feminine. Wear this when you have nothing to prove to anyone.

Better You Magnesium Oil, £9.29 for 100ml at www.amazon.co.uk

Not a perfume, but a neat trick if you’d rather funk by choice than out of necessity. A quick slick of this after a shower and before deodorant somehow seems to neutralise body odour on hot days. I have tested this extensively on the Victoria Line in July and it never once failed me. You're welcome.

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Revlon Colourstay Moisture Stain: London Posh, India Intrigue, Barcelona Nights, Shanghai Sizzle and Parisian Passion

 

By Get Lippie

I do love it when a brand releases a new range of lipcolours, particularly when that range of shades is largely composed of brights.  Ach, there's a few nudes, but we all know Get Lippie doesn't really get the nude craze, so let's just gloss over that, shall we?

From left to right here we have:

050 London Posh, 001 India Intrigue, 015 Barcelona Nights, 040 Shanghai Sizzle, 005 Parisian Passion

Essentially a collection of opaque, glossy, liquid lipstains (similar to, but better-smelling than, the YSL Glossy Lip Stains), the new range of Colourstay Moisture stains are great for imparting a high-gloss shiny lip colour that will happily last for five hours or so.

London Posh is a nude-peach with a hint of gold shimmer.
India Intrigue is a deep cool pink
Barcelona Nights is a watermelon pink (see the skin swatches below for how it differs to India Intrigue)
Shanghai Sizzle is a bright, bright tomato red
Parisian Passion is a lovely warm aubergine purple.

On the skin, you can see how the shades differ:

Application is simple, there is a shaped doe foot applicator, which allows a fairly precise application, and one swipe is great for sheerer finish, but two sweeps will give you a totally opaque coverage.  They take a minute or two to set, but once set you'll have lovely glossy lips for a good four, five hours or so.  They're not totally long-lasting though, a sandwich will wreck them faster than the thought of Justin Bieber in speedos will destroy your appetite, but there you go.

The packaging is great, I love that you can see at a glance which one is which - though the colours aren't as bright on the packaging as the actual lipsticks themselves are.  They are easy to mix, too - personally, my favourite shade is a 50-50 application of both Shanghai Sizzle and India Intrigue for a perfect pink-red effect that I really like.

I generally find the Revlon lip formula extremely drying, and these are only slightly an exception to that.  Whilst they're not the most moisturising formula on the market, they're also not the most drying in Revlon's arsenal, which is a good thing.  I do find, however, that my lips really benefit from a slip of lipbalm after spending a day wearing one of these.  I don't find them particularly staining, and they don't fade evenly when they do - you will get the red ring of doom at some point during the day when wearing these, but they do layer up quite well, and as they don't dry completely you won't end up rolling off the previous layer in chunks if you need to reapply the colour during the day.

At £8.99 each, these are a bargain punch of pigment for your lips. I picked some of mine up in a current offer at Superdrug, where they cost £5.99 each.

The Fine Print: A mixture of PR samples and personal purchases. 

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GOSH Autumn Winter 2014

By Tindara

Well it might me blisteringly sunny out there but it’s Autumn Winter launch time and I was excited to be invited to see the new GOSH products this week. As usual GOSH haven’t let us down, they seem to capture the zeitgeist better than most other brands at their price point.

Those of you into mineral make-up will be pleased to hear GOSH are launching a mineral powder. Pareben and perfume free, it’s a loose powder in a decently sized container with a handy dispenser at the top in which you can swirl your brush. I tried the powder at the event and it had really good coverage but felt light and smooth. It’s also pretty good value at £9.99 if you want to see what all the mineral make-up fuss is about.

Along with the powder they’re also launching a mineral powder brush with densely packed short bristles which do the job nicely. If you don’t have a kabuki or similar brush that works well with a mineral powder, this is a good value option at £7.99. I use mineral make-up regularly as it’s a good option for sensitive skin and for a quick base. I’d definitely consider using this in place of the Laura Mercier and Bare Minerals which I use regularly. I hope GOSH join the other mineral make-up brands and make a compact version soon too.

Another product I absolutely love is the Defining Brow Gel, I’ve read a lot about brow gels recently, but having quite sparse eyebrows I didn’t think they’d do the trick for me. Well, I have worn this every day since I got it and I love the effect. It definitely thickens and darkens my brows enough and stops me having to bother with a pencil. I am using 002 which GOSH call a brown/grey. My brows are a dark black/brown and this thickens, darkens and holds my brows in place in a subtle way. I really love it. It’s gone into my everyday make-up bag where I think it will remain.

The Giant Blush stick is another GOSH product which might remain a staple, I love the soft texture which blends really well. I tried 06 Pink Parfait which is a lovely colour. It pulls a bit more blue pink than I’d normally like, but blends very well with deep pink, and blue red lipstick shades. I tried using it as lip colour too but I found the texture wasn’t quite right for this so I’d stick to using as a quick pop of blush on the cheeks. I also wondered whether some of the lighter toned pink-brown shades could be used for a subtle contour effect.

And now to the new shadows, GOSH have themed the new pallettes in this Autumn Winter range with American cities, so there’s 001 New York sophisticated neutrals, 002 LA aqua and green-browns and my fave 003 Las Vegas (Rainbow brights). I got a Las Vegas palette which caught my eye immediately, the colours are beautiful clear brights, and I’ll be honest with you, irrespective of how these shadows work I love this palette. It’s gorgeous. The jewel-like rhomboids of colour are like a Mondrian. I know others feel the same as me about pallettes, they’re just beautiful things. So what about the shadows, you ask. They’re not massively pigmented so though the colours look bright in the pan, they’re quite subtle on, buildable washes of strong colour that would look beautiful with minimal make up look or with a liquid liner on top. Those of you that find brights scary may want to try these, they’re a good way to get a bright green or pink shadow on without making a big statement. The palettes are also good value at £9.99.

GOSH have also launched more colours of their great Velvet Touch lipsticks and a couple of new mascaras and glamorous nail colours. I have yet to try the rest, but I’m going to enjoy going to Superdrug and having a play. I hope you do too.

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Golden Touch Intimate Waxing - Soho

By Laurin

When I got back in the saddle after my divorce, I noticed a curious statement on about half the profiles of any given online dating service: “I love London, but equally love escaping the hustle and bustle for a relaxing weekend in the country.” Not me. I spend 95% of my time happily cocooned within Zones 1 and 2, believing absolutely in Peter Ackroyd’s pronouncement that “London is so large and so wild that it contains no less than everything.” Soho, especially, is the balm of my soul and since I no longer spend a sizeable portion of my time and income drinking there, I have resolved of late to concentrate all my grooming services within its streets. If I clock up enough hours here, I reason, I will simply be absorbed into the pavement of Brewer Street, and we shall never be parted again.

The only problem with this, as far as I can see, is the matter of cash. Central London beauty services are indisputably more expensive than their local counterparts, and it adds up quickly if you happen to need a haircut, waxing, and nails done all in the same month. It’s not unheard of to pay £50 or more for a bit of below-the-belt grooming in some branded salons, because who wants to put their ladyparts on the line just to save a few quid? At least, not unless a tube of Canesten is your idea of a “holiday kitbag essential”.

But lo, West End Workers! I bring you glad tidings in the glittering form of Golden Touch Waxing, which is now operating out of the Bodhi Clinic in Ingestre Place (just off Broadwick Street). It’s owned by Hannah Salisbury, a cheery New Zealander who is just striking out on her own after years working as a trainer for other waxing emporiums. She doesn’t do facials, massages or pedicures. It’s all waxing, all the time for Hannah, and she’s bloody good at it too. I’m not going to get too graphic about what I had done because this isn’t Vice and I promised Madame Editor I wouldn’t. Let’s just say it involved a large country in South America and it was, by Hannah’s own definition, an “intimate wax”. That means everything off, from belly button to coccyx. Moving swiftly on then, here’s what you need to know:

• Nobody in the hair removal business seems to bother with the pretence of modesty any longer. It’s all “knickers on the chair” and not a paper thong in sight.
• But thankfully, they do all provide wet wipes for you to “freshen up” before the treatment, which incredibly kind when it’s late July and you’ve just spent half an hour hurtling between underground locations in a sweltering metal box deemed unfit for livestock (known locally as “the Tube”).
• You get special wedge pillows pushed under your hips on each side to prevent lower back strain when you’re asked to open your knees. I’ve said it before, but small concessions to a client’s comfort during a treatment is what impresses me more than any technique. This is one of those small but utterly luxurious gestures.
• If the phrase “open your knees” already has your cheeks burning, fear not. Hannah puts you completely at ease during the treatment. We chatted about restaurants, the correct and incorrect way of holding your friend’s newborn baby and her plans for World Waxing Domination. It felt more like having a coffee with a friend than completely exposing myself to a person I’d met only ten minutes earlier.
• Hannah uses hot wax, which adheres to the hair as opposed to the skin. It doesn’t require the use of strips to remove the product, and it is about 98% less painful than traditional waxing. Which is to say that I barely noticed anything was happening at all.
• When the treatment is finished, it all goes a bit ‘Our Bodies, Our Selves’. You get a hand mirror, and Hannah steps out of the room while you inspect her handiwork. If you spot a stray that her eagle eye has missed, you can call her back in to deal with it. This was appreciated, but unnecessary in my case. I could not spy a hair out of place, so to speak.
• A full Hollywood or Brazilian costs £35. In my experience, this is a bargain for Central London.

I never thought I’d be able to say I’d had a pleasant bikini wax, but so I did. If waxing is your bag, I can wholeheartedly recommend The Golden Touch. And, to make it even better, Hannah is offering our readers £5 off any service over £30, or a free eyebrow or upper lip wax. All you have to do is quote Get Lippie when you book.

The Golden Touch (www.thegoldentouch.co.uk) is in the Bodhi Clinic at 14 Ingestre Place, W1F 0JQ. To book, call 020 7734 4184.

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