Precious Oils: The Body Shop Camomile Silky Cleansing Oil

By Laurin

Two weekends ago, I moved house. In the process of flinging my entire life into twenty cardboard boxes, I uncovered several boxes of old photos I’d dragged across the ocean at some point. Baby pictures, holiday snaps, even old pictures of my grandparents looking impossibly glamorous in the 50’s. I have carried these with me since the day fourteen years ago that I left my hometown with a one-way ticket to London and two bursting suitcases. The Delta check-in agent sweetly looked the other way when I heaved them onto the baggage scales.

I am eighteen in the picture above and I am terrified of fat: both of eating it and of putting it on my face. These are the days of fat-free Snackwell cookies and Molly McButter, a vile yellow dust that promises to taste as delicious as butter, but really just looks like an over-excited daisy got frisky with your jacket potato when you weren’t looking, leaving nothing behind but a sad smear of pollen. I load my plate with plain steamed vegetables and lather my face with a Neutrogena gel that makes my skin feel as though it’s shrunk in the dryer. It makes sense to me at the time. How can you fight oil with more oil?

Thankfully, times have changed. I figured out five years ago that plant oil on my face (and in my mouth, for that matter) is nothing to fear. In 2009, picked up a copy of India Knight’s The Thrift Book and caught wind of DHC Deep Cleansing Oil. Since then, I have been devoted to the oil cleansing method in general and DHC in particular. When I first began using it, it was only available through the DHC website, which made it a difficult sell to anyone without £20 to punt on a facial cleanser that resembled a salad dressing. Happily since then, it’s now more widely available, but I do appreciate that it is still not easily found outside of major metropolitan areas.

The Body Shop, on the other hand, is everywhere. When I was eighteen and snacking on iceberg lettuce leaves during English class, the Body Shop held an exotic appeal, largely because we didn’t have one in Mobile. Since moving to London though, I mostly associate them with fruit-scented lotions for adolescents and Christmas gift sets that inevitably end up gathering dust in a cupboard. My loss, really, for they actually have some excellent products.

The Camomile Silky Cleansing Oil is one of them. I pinched a bottle from Lippie Mansions a few months back and I’ve been using it as my morning cleanser ever since. For £10, it’s seriously good stuff. It’s a paler yellow and slightly runnier than my beloved DHC, but no less effective at removing make-up and leaving your face feeling clean and super-soft. If I’m using it at night, I massage a single pump into my face with my fingers for about thirty seconds, then use cotton wool to remove my eye make-up. I then remove the rest of the oil with a hot flannel. If I remember, I use the Body Shop Facial Roller after removing my eye make-up, but before the hot flannel.

The complaints I’ve heard from those who don’t get on with oil cleansing fall largely into two camps: first, that the oil always runs through their fingers and onto their clothes or down the drain, and second, that it ends up in their eyes and gives them blurry vision. All I can say is that the former has never been a problem for me (perhaps I have exceptionally well-arranged fingers), and the latter stopped happening after a few uses.

Will the Body Shop oil be a permanent replacement for the DHC on my bathroom shelf? Honestly, no. But my preference is largely aesthetic, not based on effectiveness. I like the dark, greeny-gold colour of the DHC, and I like the fact that it smells faintly of olive oil, allowing me to pretend I’m a Greek goddess, rubbing my alabaster skin with precious ointments. But I’d happily buy it if it was the week before payday and I’d run out of DHC. And I’d absolutely recommend it to anyone who wanted to try oil cleansing without splashing the cash for the DHC. It’s a tenner. Take the punt.

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Lipsticks of the (last) Week

Autumn is really kicking in now (anyone else put their central heating on? No?  Just me then?), so my lipsticks have taken a turn for the deeper and darker again ...

Here we have (l-r):
Vincent Longo's Americana,
Guerlain KissKiss in Cherry Pink,
Bare Minerals Lead The Way,
Revlon Colourstay Opulent Garnet
Revlon Colourstay Divin Port Wine
OCC Matte Lip Tars in NSFW & Strumpet
and Clinique's Superbalm in Black Honey

Here's how they swatch:

Lovely, lovely saturated colours.  Americana is a tomato red, cherry pink is a glorious soft purple with a hint of gold shimmer, Lead the Way is a deep fuchsia with purple overtones.  Opulent Garnet is precisely what is says on the label, and Divine Port Wine is a rich deep wine shade.  I do find both of these quite drying in wear though, so load up on lipbalm if you need it.  I mix NSFW 50:50 with Strumpet for a deep and longlasting pinked red that's my favourite colour of the moment, and Black Honey is an unusual sheer purple-taupe that just adds a hint of depth to my natural lip colour.

Here's how the individual OCC colours swatch.  Strumpet is a cool fuchsia, and NSFW is a bright, bright fire engine red.  Individually, I find both of them a little difficult to wear, but mixed together makes a gorgeous neutral, totally opaque red with just a slight hint of pink, which is easier for me to wear (I keep an old lipbalm tin around so I can carry some ready-mixed around with me for touchups during the day):
 

What's been your fancy this week?

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Lipstick Queen Silver Screen Collection

Lipstick Queen - long one of Get Lippie's favourite lipstick brands - has brought out a companion collection to the gorgeous Velvet Rope collection they brought out last year.  Velvet Rope was a capsule collection of feather-light matte shades in beautiful deco-style packaging.  

In the same (albeit silver this time) beautifully heavy packaging, Silver Screen is a collection of highly-pigmented glossy shades, in a tightly edited collection of BRIGHT colours.

Here we have Made It (a deep wine), Have Paris (glorious crimson) and Stella! (an insanely bright in the bullet purple).

The texture is whisper-light, and even though they're a glossy formulation, they're not at all waxy or greasy on the lips.  Whilst less pigmented than Velvet Rope, and on the sheer side in comparison too, they're not unpigmented:

As you can see on skin, even the frankly terrifying in the bullet Made It and Stella! are both wearable shades, even if Stella! is still on the  ... "editorial" ... side.  I'm sure I can pull it off with the right hair and makeup around it though!

Silver Screen lipsticks cost £35 each and are available from Space NK now, available in seven shades, including nudes and pinks.  You'll love them.

The Fine Print: PR Samples.

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Aveda Shampure Body Lotion, Body Wash and Compostition Oil

By Luke

There aren’t many of us that haven’t been seduced by at least one of Aveda's products. With their natural ingredients, and superb scents in just about everything they do, there was a collective sigh of relief when Aveda first arrived on the scene in the UK, as they proved that harsh chemicals and synthetics in hair products were unnecessary for healthy hair.

It took me a long while to jump on board with Aveda, but when I coloured my hair bright red recently I got involved with the excellent Madder Root shampoo and conditioner. Anyone who has had a similar colour knows that red hair dyes are notorious for fading fast, not to mention they're prone to looking a little lacklustre after few washes, so anything that helps stop those has to be a plus. And the Madder Root range from Aveda really does help and, as a bonus, it smells amazing.

However, Shampure is perhaps the most famous, and most-loved, shampoo range from Aveda. With its extremely distinctive scent that is now synonymous with the brand, it is incredibly popular. This year saw the 25^th anniversary of Shampure, and they've celebrated with the introduction of body products and oils all featuring the distinctive and much-beloved Shampure fragrance. Well, I say "fragrance", but it is actually the result of blending over 25 pure flower and plant extracts, including ylang ylang, lavender, and petit grain, all of which are said to bring on a sense of well being and calm. This is just as well really, as this is the signature scent of all Aveda salons around the world!

The Shampure hand & body wash is sulphate free and has the benefit of added organic Babassu nut oil which can apparently create a naturally cooling sensation on the skin which can help with relaxation and insomnia, I love this. The body lotion is hydrating and easy to apply, and is perfect for keeping that gorgeous Shampure scent with you throughout the day.

Even more recently they have added the Shampure fragrance to the ranks of their superb multi use composition oils. These are credited as being beneficial for body, bath, nails and scalp, and the universal oil can be used for just about everything except cooking (like you'd cook with a scented oil!) and obviously, it smells incredible! It's lighter - and more runny - than the other composition oils in Aveda's range, but it's fabulous for treating dry ends on longer hair, and makes a great addition to a hot bath that will both scent your skin and home beautifully. Use it on your scaly bits too, so if you've ever wanted beautifully scented elbows, now's your chance ... Now, Aveda, sort out a Shampure candle, will you?

Aveda Shampure bath and body, and composition oil available now. Prices range from £17 to £23.

The Fine Print: PR Samples.

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Lipsticks of the Week

Ah, Lipstick of the week, it's been a while, eh?  I assure you, I've been wearing just as much lipstick as always, but there's been no sunlight for pictures for ages!  With the change in the weather recently, autumnal berries and plums have been calling out to me this week, so this is what I've been wearing:

Boots No7 Soft Ruby
Lipstick Queen Saint in Wine
Laura Mercier in Healthy Lips
Bare Minerals Moxie in Live Large
Lipstick Queen Sinner Wine
And By Terry Baume de Rose in Fig

 Soft Ruby is a beautiful pinked red, Saint Wine is possibly my favourite lipstick of all time - a perfect MLBB shade that is a lovely shade on the lips.  Healthy Lips is similar to Saint Wine, but a pinker, brighter version.  Live Large is an opaque mauve berry, which is good for a more dressy look, but isn't as "in your face" as a bright red.  Sinner Wine is (of course) the opaque version of Saint Wine, a gorgeous berrywine colour that suits cooler mornings perfectly.  Fig Baume de Rose is my "barely there" lipcolour.  The swatch looks quite terrifying on the paper there, but it's pretty and fresh on the lips!

Here's how they swatch on skin.  These are some of my all-time favourite lipstick colours - what have you been wearing recently?

The Fine Print: Mixture of PR samples and purchases.

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Nail Effects with IZ Beauty of London

By Emily

A couple of weeks ago I was invited along to the launch of IZ Beauty of London’s new collection of nail effects at The Sanderson Hotel in London. Other than nails, my other favourite thing is pick and mix, so imagine my glee when I arrived to discover a table piled with nail amazingness and jars of sugary delights! It’s like they knew I was coming!

Nestled amongst the bonbons and strawberry laces was a whole new kind of candy…and I was invited to fill up a box with all my favourite bits. From simple studs, to punk spikes and gold leaf, this collection is pretty damn awesome. Even the humble nail sticker has had a makeover: the Deco It designer nail decals are a revelation; something between a transfer and a sticker, they lie flat to the nail with no annoying edges to come unstuck. Most of the elements have been designed with gel nails in mind, but that hasn’t stopped me applying some of these amazing effects to my natural nails. I hope you like them!

I love the simplicity of this look – a simple black gloss nail with single gold studs at the base, and a graphic decal in gold on a feature nail. After sealing with a good top coat I was impressed that the studs stayed put for a good week (though the provided glue was very strong!).

The second look I tried was a bit fiddly but once you get into a rhythm applying the studs it doesn’t take long at all. I started with two coats of my favourite Essie polish called Cocktail Bling. Then using a dabber with a touch a glue I added the individual studs (alternating gold flat studs and blue pearls) in a long strip. I love this effect and once again, it lasted for a week, with the studs out-lasting the polish!

The good news is that all these lovely embellishments and decals will be available at http://izbeauty.co.uk at the end of October.

And finally, when you’ve got studs (or worse, glitter polish) that won’t budge, here’s how to remove it quickly and simply – just soak cotton pads in remover, wrap around each nail, wrap in foil and leave for about 10 mins. When you remove the foil and pads away comes all the polish!

The Fine Print: PR Samples

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Sali Hughes - Pretty Honest: Beauty Book Review

By Get Lippie

I love beauty books, I've been collecting them for years now, and even have some that date back to the mid 1800's.  There's a special joy in reading beauty regimes from days gone by, and if the book dates back far enough, they're a wonderful historical document, opening your eyes to just what life was like for women back in the day.  On the flip-side of that coin, there's the special joy that comes from reading a mid-1980's beauty book, and laughing at all the pictures and wondering how the hell no one noticed just how INSANE they looked. I have a lot of books from the 80s for some reason ... funny that.

Traditionally, "modern" beauty books fall into two categories: the picture heavy "How To" tome, usually presented by a makeup artist, filled with impossible to follow "simple" instructions, which are usually dated the second they're sent out from the printer, and the second is a "lifestyle" kind of tome, filled with snippets of how the author (usually a "celebrity" of some kind) lives their "beautiful" life, replete with soft-focus heavily posed pictures of said celebrity in yoga positions, arranging flowers, diet tips, and a small interview with their hairdresser or makeup artist towards the back.

Delightfully, Pretty Honest by Sali Hughes doesn't fall into either of these categories, being on the text-heavy side, and providing more of a guide for people who fall into the "What the hell are they talking about now?" category when faced with a "helpful" sales assistant in Debenhams. We've all been there. I've actually been known to say it to them, which is why I had to move to London where no one recognises me in the department stores any more.

Pretty Honest is logically laid out, with discrete chapters on every aspect of skincare and make up, for all ages, and whether you like to where a little makeup or a lot.  Sali (rightfully) avoids the trap of recommending specific products for specific uses. This can be a particular pitfall of so many books because, as we all know brands tend to discontinue things (or change the formulation) the very second people fall in love with them. Yes, I'm looking at you, Chanel India Pink lipstick.

Refreshingly candid, funny and down-to-earth, I enjoyed reading (and I do mean actually reading, as opposed to flicking through and admiring the pictures) Pretty Honest a great deal.  It reminds me, in the very best of ways, of how beauty blogs used to be before the hidden sponsorship and "lifestyle" prettiness took over a year or so ago.  I love the pretty blogs, actually, but I do genuinely prefer meaty content to beautiful pictures and Pretty Honest has that in spades.

It's actually a consumer guide on to how to use products (and avoid skincare problems), disguised as a beauty book and I, for one, am glad that it exists.  Sali's a great bunch of lads, and whilst I think she's frankly insane on the issue of foundation primers, there's a lot of great information in here.

It'll make a fantastic beauty-related gift for anyone who's ever worn lipstick.  It's £22 and available in all good bookstores now.

The Fine Print: PR Sample.

This post: Sali Hughes - Pretty Honest: Beauty Book Review originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper