London Fashion Week: Emerging Trends

By Tindara

It’s been a little while since I wrote anything for Get Lippie, and to get me back in the writing saddle, and so I could atone for this appalling neglect, our resident pro make-up artist Luke Stephens arranged a ticket for me to attend the London Fashion Week Synergy event: Emerging Trends. Luke was second in command to make-up supremo, Nicci Jackson and the London Muse pro make-up team for Emerging Trends. This is an annual European showcase of new designers and can be a really important springboard into the industry for them. There was certainly some interesting work in show, and I really enjoyed the whole experience, especially getting a glimpse of what happens backstage.

Obviously, it all started with me panicking about what to wear on Facebook, as I’d never been to anything at London Fashion Week before! I dutifully went with black, as everyone had told me to, with some killer Pavie Gioelli chain earrings and my faithful furry leopard ankle boots. When I got there I was welcomed backstage by Luke and Nicci, and it was all remarkably calm. Models were milling about in jewel encrusted and geometric patterned silk, and the mother of all make-up collections was spread out on one side of the room. I could pretend that I was like, totally cool, but the reality was my mind was screaming “OHMIGOD, the girl from Tottenham is backstage at London Fashion Week”. I know it sounds supremely hackneyed, but everyone really was lovely, especially Nicci and her London Muse Academy team who gave up their time to be there, who didn’t seem to mind me nosing about while they worked away.

Luke and Nicci had an impressive schedule with the corresponding series of looks photographed, rehearsed and ready. As I was whisked away I got to see the first few models ready to go for Naveda Couture (USA), the diaphanous fabrics, shimmery beading, and olive, coral and cream colour palette were set off by a gleaming metallic sheen on the skin with fishtails plaits and natural curls.

Anya Liesnick’s (Germany) slick cuts and Rorschach style patterned fabrics were complemented by strong straight dark brows and exaggerated winged black liner, and matt peach or red lips. Shefali Couture’s (Dubai) satins, lace and shimmer, were accompanied by more metallic sheen, white liner round the eyes and matt orange lips. Fleur Kelinza (UK) and Stefan Meuwissen’s (Belgium) beautiful brown, orange, cream, black and gold geometric honeycomb silks were teamed with more peach matt lips and a china blue shadow with a lovely sixties vibe.

The real stars were Prieston (Noémi Nagy Hungary) and La Mo Designs (Leonora Asomanin UK). Prieston in particular, featured beautifully cut dresses in innovative richly coloured and textured fabrics, modern floral brocades with see through elements, Russian influences and crystal-encrusted bling. One dress in particular made me and my neighbour sigh. It was a grown up princess dress with puffs at the shoulder, gathers at the waist and discreet V-back coupled with a saucy red floral fabric with see through areas. I loved the baby-pink gloss used on models, the sunkissed look with long tousled braids was really playful with the full on drama of the Prieston stuff.

Asomanin’s work was also structurally impressive, influenced by Japanese traditional kimonos, though brighter with beautifully colourful fabrics, long trains attached to belts and shoulders. Make-up was strong and dark and goth-inspired, with both black shadow and lips, or heightened colour, like blue, pink and yellow on both eyes and lips.

I hadn’t appreciated how much hard work make-up for one of these shows is before; Nicci, Luke and the rest of the team did a great job. No wonder Luke said it was like a conveyor belt back there! The amount of different looks and how they corresponded to each designer’s work was a creative and organisational feat. Tune in next LFW for more back-stage make-up stories, meanwhile, I’m practicing sashaying in very high heels and triple top knots with blue lipstick.

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Tauer Perfumes: Sotta La Luna Gardenia Review

By Laurin

Spending one’s Saturday afternoons poking around perfume blogs and websites brings one to a small and perhaps completely obvious conclusion. Many perfumers and perfume lovers alike are also gardeners. This makes sense when I think of it, that a love of fragrance might be born out of a love of nature and the bounty of odours within. Or perhaps having a living reference to hand is useful when attempting to evoke through scent a childhood memory of long summer nights and fragrant breezes. OR, maybe we’re all just natural hedonists for whom the feel of one’s hands in wet soil or the sun on bare skin is just as irresistible as any foray into gluttony or lust.

All of the above?

I have neither a green thumb, nor a garden in which to put it to work. My personal smellscape is limited to the urban, the gourmet and the grotesque. To my knowledge, I have never smelled a gardenia. So, when I sat down to write this piece, I found myself at the mercy of the Royal Horticultural Society via Google. On the subject of gardenia, they have this to say: “(Gardenias are) grown for their attractive foliage and highly scented showy flowers. (They are) often considered to be difficult.”

Attractive, highly scented and possibly difficult could easily apply to Andy Tauer’s latest release, Gardenia Sotto La Luna. To be fair, you could apply the same to most of his fragrances and you wouldn’t be lying. They are not fragrances for the faint of heart, nor do they make small talk. They should only be sprayed when you’re in the mood to listen.

Gardenia gets straight to the point as it takes the stage. This is a heady, intense floral with no aldehydes or bergamot to soften its seductive message. The flower is laid over a creamy base of tonka and vanilla, which peek through its spicy facets of gingerbread and clove from start to finish. But lest you thought you were getting a freshly baked confection, warm from the over, you should also know that this gardenia always keeps its feet planted firmly in the more earthly scents of overripe banana and tiny mushrooms pushing through the forest floor.

There is a telling scene in Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises in which Montoya, the bullfighting aficionado and hotel proprietor, walks into a bar in search of the young bullfighter Pedro Romero and finds him: 

“with a big glass of cognac in his hand, sitting between (Jake) and a woman with bare shoulders, at a table full of drunks. He did not even nod.”

Sotto La Luna Gardenia is that bare-shouldered woman, Lady Brett Ashley. Nominally an upstanding fragrance that you could introduce to your grandmother, but ready (and more importantly, willing) to fulfil your most carnal urges behind closed doors. Or, as that noted 21^st century philosopher Usher noted in his 2004 treatise entitled Yeah!, “a lady in the street but a freak in the bed!”  

The Fine Print: Sample sourced from Les Senteurs

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My Little Box comes to the UK

I am somewhat sceptical (shut up at the back) about "beauty boxes".  I'll be honest, I'm not really a fan.  I think some of the Glossybox limited edition boxes have been great (fabulous, even), but ... yeah, £10 (+ p&p) or so a month for a couple of things you can usually get free from department store counters, plus a bonus "full size" product or two just doesn't really float my boat, especially when you can't pick and choose what you get.  So when I heard about My Little Box, the subscription box service from the team behind "My Little Paris"  I simply wasn't that excited about it.

Genuinely.

However, that lasted just until I received my first sample box, and then I realised that My Little Box was actually something quite, quite different.  And rather wonderful to boot. And then, being the sceptical so-and-so that I am, I wondered if it was just that one first box that would be great,  and the next box would be full of those department-store perfume sachets and "lifestyle" teabags that we've all begun to know and dread.

It wasn't:

Not a sad-looking perfume card, "bonus" chocolate, or "artisan" teabag in sight. These are the contents of the last three boxes, two of the French original boxes on the right, and the first UK-exclusive box bottom left (top left is a special one-off box I'll talk to you about a bit later on).  What I hadn't realised about My Little Box at first is that it's not merely a beauty sampling service, it's actually a proper gift box sent to you from Paris.  And they do it beautifully.

What you get every month is a proper magazine (not just a puff-piece for the brands in the box), a "lifestyle item" (these have included playing cards, jewellery, scarves and sarongs in the past), several beauty samples (usually three, at least one of which is always full size), and some other bonus items which fit with the theme of the box, because every single My Little Box has a theme, and it follows through on the theme both inside and out, through the magazine, to the lid of the box, to the actual contents of the box too, it's a joy to unpack.

In this months UK box we got a half-size Laura Mercier Foundation Primer, a travel-size bottle of Nuxe oil, and a full-size My Little Beauty Highlighter Pen, alongside a "My Little Carnet" notebook (which also contained this month's magazine), some "Parisian" stickers, and an iPad cover, which I was delighted with!  (ETA it's actually a laptop cover, but it'll work for iPads too!)

Real thought and care goes into every box, and the house style (created by in-house designer Kanako) is cute without being too whimsical, and it all just adds that little something extra to every month's delivery. Unlike some boxes where all the thought apparently goes into the box itself, it feels like every single My Little Box is a limited edition. It's a lovely feeling.

The reason for this is that the My Little Paris team live and breathe the brand.  Last month I was lucky enough to be invited along to their Paris offices which are in Montmarte, directly in the shadow of Sacre Cour, to see how they work.  I came away with a new appreciation for the company (which started as a mailing list to 50 people every month, and now has 1 million subscribers across France, alongside 80,000 box subscribers every month too) where every member of the team seems to live and breathe beauty and lifestyle through everything that they do.  We were treated to a view of their Paris, which was wonderful, and I now have a new list of places to go and things to do when I go back!    Whilst we were there we were presented with a souvenir "Welcome to Paris" box, which is the one you saw in the group shot above, and now I've finally taken pictures of it, I can't wait to get stuck in! Here's a little photo-essay of my day in Paris with My Little Box:

Breakfast. Check out those Eiffel Tower biccies!

You don't really get more Paris than this view from the roof garden.

They have a book.  Did I mention the book?  There's a book.  It's good.  Get one.

Reference books in the My Little Paris offices

Emails from happy subcribers are hung everywhere around the building.

I want this office.  That is all.

The ideas laboratory where the team get together to brainstorm.

Sacre cour!

Internet circa 1895

Boxes!  Loads of them!

Gorgeous work-spaces 

Art from the Quiet Gallery.  I nearly bought this.  Still regretting that I didn't.

Lunch - a real hidden gem.

BEEF!

Notre Dame

All the boxes cost £11, which is just £1 more than other beauty boxes on the market - and, considering the box is sent direct from Paris, the postage costs just £3.95, which is around 70p more than UK based box services.  The difference in quality, however, is priceless. Think you deserve a treat?  Well so do My Little Box.


The Fine Print: Get Lippie was a guest of My Little Paris in Paris.  Boxes have been sent as PR Samples.   There was no expectation of review, but I've been so delighted and surprised, I just had to.  Even sceptics get excited sometimes, you know.

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No7 MatchMade Lipstick Service

*Sponsored Post*

My love of lipstick is fairly well-known, I think, after all, there's a reason this blog is called "Get Lippie"!  Even before I started blogging my lip product collection numbered in the (low-ish) three figures, and now I am a fully-fledged five year plus blogger the only reason my lipsticks don't take over the entire house is because I'm fairly ruthless at editing my collection every once in a while and donating anything I haven't used in a month or three to charity.  That said, there are lipsticks in every room of my house, and from the sofa where I'm sitting blogging right now, I can see around 100 lipsticks or so on the book case on the other side of the room ... oh well, everybody needs a hobby, right? And they are very decorative.  THEY ARE.

What might be less-known is that I also love finding lipsticks for other people. I've spent many lovely hours in department stores around the country terrorising sales assistants finding gorgeous lipsticks for my friends, family and even complete strangers, helping to find them that perfect shade that complements their skin, their eyes, their hair and the occasion they need the lipstick for.  I'm a firm believer that there's a perfect red lipstick for absolutely everyone, too.  Everyone.

But I can't be everywhere, sadly.  So, when I heard about the new No7 Match Made Lipstick service, I was intrigued.  Based on their foundation-matching technology, Boots No7 have now created 43 lipstick shades and grouped them according to how well they go with each individual No7 foundation shade.  You go to your favourite Boots store (we've all got one), ask them to scan your skin tone, and you'll come away with a little card that groups your best shades of pink, coral, red, plums and natural lipsticks, in a variety of moisturising and matte finishes. It's painless, and really good fun!

This is Soft Paprika

I popped along to Boots on Oxford Street last Saturday to see the lipstick matching in action, and help people with their pressing lipstick questions - we had lots of fun! We had a photobooth, and we spent a happy hour or four getting people matched up with their best shades, then going for a little singalong in the booth before taking pics of ourselves in our new lipstick shades. We met some lovely people, and if you were one of them, thank you for popping by!

Not constipated.  POUTING.

So, if you can't afford a personal shopper, and you don't have a blogger handy to help pick out your best colours (and hey, who does?), why not pop along to your nearest Boots and let No7 take the strain?

The Fine Print: This is a sponsored post, however,  Boots No7 products photographed in this piece were purchased at the author's own expense.

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Urban Decay Pulp Fiction Collection

It's everywhere at the moment, but I couldn't not blog about the Urban Decay Pulp Fiction collection, because it contains one of my favourite beauty items that has been released ALL YEAR.  Yes, one of these items is so lovely and amazing that, literally the day this collection went in-store, I ordered three back-ups of one of the products.  I actually ended up with six back-ups, but more about that later ...

Anyhoo, in news that will make a sizeable percentage of my readershship (myself included) feel really, really really old, this year marks the 20th year since Pulp Fiction was released. TWENTY YEARS!  Jeez.  I remember Quentin Tarantino being the enfant terrible of cinema back then, I bet Quentin thinks he still is.  I'm digressing, of course, as this makeup collection is basically a tribute to Uma Thurman in character as Mrs Mia Wallace, and as Limited Edition collections go, this is a good one.

The collection consists of the eyeshadow palette, a lipstick with matching liner, a nail varnish, and a repromote of one of the Heavy Metal glittery eyeliners.   There's also a makeup instruction card that will help you recreate the definitive Mia Wallace look.

I think they've got the colours spot-on, to be honest, aside from the white, which I don't think is entirely necessary, they already have the highlight colour in Righteous, which makes "Furious" rather redundant, but, anyway.

Colours are velvety and pigmented, and wear very well over a base. The dinky double-ended brush that you get in the palette is extremely good quality as these things go, and is a handy addition to the palette, unlike many of these things.

With Flash

Natural Daylight

The one bit of the collection I'm disappointed with is the addition of the glittery liner, which I think would have been better replaced with one of Urban Decay's excellent black liners (they currently have at least four, and any single one of them would have been more useful than silver glitter, but hey, as I've already discussed, I'm an old gimmer, right?), but Gunmetal it is.

The lips and nails though, are marvellous.  Good and bloody, and very, very red.  I wore Chanel's Rouge Noir for years (both lips and nails) after Pulp Fiction - it was the first time I'd realised that dark nail varnish was even "allowed"! I was a bit hacked off, actually, when Chanel re-released Rouge Noir lipstick a few years ago, only to have changed it to a cruddy, unflattering brown shade rather than the deep bloody red of my memory (actually, not just my memory, I still have a Rouge Noir lip palette in the house, eeep!).  Whilst these colours aren't direct matches to the shades worn by Uma in the film, they are darn good, and beautiful. 

The formulation on Urban Decay's lipsticks generally excellent, and Mrs Mia Wallace is no exception.  Creamy, moisturising and deeply pigmented, it's a joy to wear. The lipliner is  just a bonus really, you don't need it for coverage, but it's a nice thing to have, all the same.

My joy from the collection is the nail varnish, however.  Yes, it's no A England in formulation, but the colour!  Oh, the colour, it's a perfect blood-red, with just a tiny hint of shimmer to stop it being too flat, but for me, this is the red I've been looking for.  It can be a tiny bit chip-tastic, but I find the sticky-sandwich technique works really well for combating that.

So, I immediately went out and ordered three bottles of the nail polish from the Urban Decay website.  But, they "lost" my order (well, it was never confirmed, and even after long discussions with the company they never could find my order) so I ordered my backups from Debenhams.  However, the Urban Decay bottles from the lost order turned up anyway!  So now I have SEVEN bottles of Mrs Mia Wallace polish.  Want one?  Leave me a comment (on this post) with your favourite quote from Pulp Fiction and I'll pick two of them at random on Friday and send you each a bottle of polish ... (UK readers only, sorry!)

The Fine Print: Samples were provided for this review by Urban Decay, however the bottles of polish being given away were purchased at my own expense - and the giveaway is not being run in association with the brand.

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