Lost in Makeupland

Intriuged by this post at Lipstick and Lightsabers, I thought Lost in Makeupland had a great selection of neutral shades, and so this mineral-makeup-shy accountant was tempted to place an order.

Lost in Makeupland is an Etsy Shop, run by Belen, who manufactures all her items in Spain.  I thought the selection of shades was great, and very wearable. I run away from bright loose shadows like nothing on earth, and Anastasia's swatches made the colours look very beautiful and complex.  I picked out 12 shades to try, and here they are:

Shy and Faerie are blush/highlighters rather than eyeshadows, and they're beautiful.  Shy is a pink with gold, and Faerie is a white with peach, both of which suit my not that pale, and only slightly warm skin very well.  Libertine is dark charcoal with silver lights, and Purrrple is a rather dusty (and beautiful!) purple, that will work very well with my hazel eyes.  It's a lighter version of my beloved Twilight Grey from Laura Mercier, which I can't live without.

Bruised is a little more brown than Purrrple, and I like it a great deal.  7 Nation army is a blackened green with silver sparkle.  Volta is another dark, dark, purple, with just a touch of shimmer, and tan is - as the name might imply - a metallic tan shade.

Expensive is a complex gold shade, Guns'n'Roses is a gunmetal grey with silver glitter, bioshock is a blackened green, and Queen is a dark Cadbury purple. 


I think you can tell I was in a purple/neutral/smoky frame of mind when I ordered these!   All of the shades were beautifully silky to apply with a lightly dampened brush, and there was little to no fallout.  The colours are wonderfully complex, and occasionally appear slightly duochrome.  I mainly picked neutrals (for me, purple is a neutral!) but there's a wonderful selection of shades. Colour me very impressed.


I've just noticed from Belen's blog that she's just introduced a line of finishing powders which I think will be my next purchase from her store.


I bought a pack of ten samples for $6 from Etsy, and each sample is enough for around ten applications, I'd estimate.  Belen was kind enough to add in an extra eyeshadow and blusher as a free gift, for which I was very grateful, I wouldn't have ordered Shy otherwise, but it's lovely.  There are far more shades than this, and it's highly likely I'll be picking out a few more when I head over to order that finishing powder ... this is a mineral brand I can really get behind!


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

Project Perfume - First update featuring Chanel, Guerlain and Thierry Mugler

So, the first month of Project Perfume has gone stonkingly well, I've sniffed around 20 new perfumes, swapped out some old perfumes (and, some newer ones I didn't like), and sat with Linda Pilkington of Ormonde Jayne for a "perfume portrait".  Plus, I've discovered some new perfumes I absolutely adore.  Here are the highlights of my month.

On my Project Perfume page, you can see all the perfumes that I've crossed off the list - I'm not going to list them all here, but the ones that I've found in January were largely ones that were very easy for me to track down, I seem to be saving all the difficult ones for further down the line, possibly a little bit foolhardy, but I'm not really one for making life easy for myself, it seems.  I will be reviewing a couple further down the page though.

I also attended the Scratch + Sniff event: "A Perfumed Journey Around the World" with My Perfume Life and Persolaise  (both of whom are massive inspirations on this project) where we were guided on a journey through Morocco, 1980's Moscow, Bengal, Java, The Alps and Kyoto by James Craven of the infamous perfume store Les Senteurs.  This was a huge amount of fun, and I got some great feedback from other perfume enthusiasts of my live-tweeting of the event.  There were some scents I liked (heavy, spicy smoky ones), some I wasn't bothered about (marine ones), one I loved (by Andy Tauer), and one I didn't like at all (a fruity floral, who knew?), all in all a great evening, and well worth £12.50 of anyone's money, I'll definitely be going back.

So, the scents I've picked out to talk about this month are:

A*Men by Thierry Mugler
Chanel No19 by Chanel, and,
Vetiver by Guerlain


A*Men - Thierry Mugler

 Perfumes The A-Z Guide gives this four stars, and describes it as a "chocolate mint" scent.


An extract: "... one hand a herbaceous lavender-mint chord brightened by aldehydes.  ... reinforces the roasted section with caramel, coffee and tar ... simultaneously poisonous and delicious eat-me-and-die feel as the original.  Hard to imagine on a guy, but a great feminine"


Now, I hate the original version of Angel, it's choking, too sweet, too cloying, too floral, too ... everything.  It's a vision of hell dipped in sugar and sold to unsuspecting 20-somethings who think everything sweet (and strong) is good.  So, I was prepared to hate this, but the description of "chocolate mint" had me thinking that it might be worth a try.  I mentioned already that I go a little bit crazy for mint smells (however cheap and soapy), so I got my hands on a sample.


And, there's no mint in it.  Not a bit.  Chocolate, caramel, and sugar galore, oh yes, but no mint.  And I don't mind.  This is possibly because I don't have to imagine it on a male, MrLippie has been wearing it non-stop since it turned up.  It makes him smell deliciously edible, and it's a wonderful change from all the "clean" scents he's been favouring lately.  Yes, it's loud.  Yes, it smells incredibly odd for the first five minutes after spraying (that'll be the tar, with a slight hint of burnt rubber), but for the rest of the day, you'll smell like a sexy Caramac.


Man, that looks so stupid now I've written it down. It's rather true though.  Lippie rating: Weird (but gooooood)


Anyway, onto:


Chanel No 19

As diametrically opposed to A*Men as it is possible to be, I'm still finding it hard to believe that I'd never smelled this before until now.  Perfumes categorises this as a four star "green floral"


An extract: " ... from the silvery hiss of it's nail-polish-remover beginnings to its poisonously beautiful green-floral heart ... For a fragrance with so many springtime references, all white blossoms and leafy greenery, No19 never lands you in any Sound of Music meadows"

Cold, austere, bitter, but undeniably beautiful, this is a fragrance I can wear whenever I'm pretending to be an elegant businesswoman in control of my destiny, instead of the lightly hassled, frazzled, and dumpy, frumpy, lumpy accountant I actually am.  There's nothing warm or sweet about this fragrance, and it's all the better for it.  It's a spritz of pure confidence in a bottle, and I've taken to wearing it to board meetings.  Yes, I do attend board meetings, something that astonishes me upon occasions too.  It's dry, but less obviously "perfumey" than Chanel No5, and I don't smell many flowers in the perfume until it's almost worn off.  I love it.  For me this falls into the Very Nice category, but for MrLippie, it's merely in the Nice/Soapy area, there aren't enough soft edges for him.  It's a perfume to wear to please yourself, and go hang anyone who doesn't like it.


Vetiver by Guerlain

I hadn't really smelled all that much vetiver till just before Christmas, but this was a beautiful addition to my perfume collection.


Luca Turin names this as the "reference vetiver" and gives it four stars in the book.  His write up is rather dismissive of the current formulation, however, this fragrance is talked about in the context of so many other perfumes in the book, that I felt that my perfume "education" would be incomplete without smelling it.


And I'm very glad I did, it's a perfect "sparkling" green scent, not too sweet, not too citrus, and not too smoky.  Vetiver is a grass, with - on my skin - hints of grapefruit, and for me, this is a perfect every day scent, I get hints of pepper, possibly a bit of clove, but the spice never dominates.  It's clean, it's fresh, but it's never soapy, it's wonderful.  I'm currently trying to convince MrLippie to try it (it's classified as a masculine, but I think it's perfectly, wonderfully unisex), but I'm still having trouble tearing him away from A*Men ...  


This is a massive post, so I think I'll save writing about my meeting with the lovely and amazing Linda Pilkington till later in the week!





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

Nail of the Day - Deborah Lippmann Don't Tell Mamma

I saw this online at House of Fraser and had to have it, it looked so gorgeous!  And, in the bottle it is, a deep dark blackened green, with incredible micro-shimmer.

As with my last Lippmann polish, application was perfect, smooth and opaque within two coats, and the wear was great, it lasted four days without chipping and I was very happy with it ...

but ....

Where's the shimmer?  It's just black on the nails! Just occasionally, depending on the light, the angle of viewing, even the time of day, you get a hint of the shimmer, but most of the time it's just black.  A good black, and a lovely polish, to be sure, but I was disappointed all the same. Gorgeous, just not quite gorgeous enough, I'm afraid.  Especially at £14 a bottle!


The Fine Print: Bought this with cash.  Not my cash, of course, but it still counts.

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

Cult Beauty: Live at Selfridges

Odd though it may seem, I'm not - actually - a big fan of makeup shopping online.  I like to see, touch, swatch and even smell the products I'm buying!  Also, when I decide I want something, I want it RIGHT NOW. None of which is possible from the comfort of your laptop, alas ...

Despite that, I do, occasionally buy things from beauty websites - usually things which are difficult/impossible to find on the high street - and one of the best ones I've visited is Cult Beauty. I do love their well thought out selection, and it's a nicely laid out site too.

So, with my dislike of online cosmetics shopping, and my love of Cult Beauty, I'm delighted that the CB girls are launching a pop-up shop in one of my real-life favourite stores, Selfridges (honestly, I'd move in, if I could), today!  Hoorah! I'll finally be able to do all the swatching and sniffing of their amazing stock that I need to before, no doubt,  handing over a goodly part of this month's salary for whatever it is I decide I can't live without today ...

The shop opens 27th Jan, and will be at Selfridges until Monday 31st January. For more details please click this link (and get yourself a nice little voucher for some freebies!)



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

Dear Mr Lippie

Be afraid, be very afraid … for have I found the perfect Valentine's present for you!

Guyliner. Oh yes! But not just any guyliner, there's also mascara and concealer in this handy kit. It's like the lovely people at http://www.guyliner.co.uk/ have been reading my mind! And for just £20, I can finally make all my "dating an 80's rockstar" fantasies come true*!

Oh, I'm going to have such fun this February 14th...

*C'mon, don't tell me I'm alone here!

Bourjois Little Round Pots

I love me some Bourjois, I think they're actually my favourite high street brand.  I find their products are very high quality for the price point (even as I notice that price point is creeping ever-upwards these days), but it's fair to say that my makeup collection contains a sizeable collection from the brand.

When I discovered they'd relaunched their entire collection of "Little Round Pots" recently - after being astonished to discover they were 150 years old! - I was a little concerned, as sometimes, reformulation generally means poorer quality, but on trialling a few over the last month or two I've had my concerns allayed somewhat, and I'm happy to say that the new, reformulated Little Round Pot is better than ever.

I picked up a selection of shades to try, as you can see above, clockwise from bottom left you have:

02 - glorious mermaid blue (shimmer)
04 - beautiful deep purple (shimmer)
14 - steely grey (shimmer)
07 -  deep blackened forest green (shimmer)
74 - purple-based taupe (shimmer)
13 - lightly pinked-purple (glitter)
11 - concrete grey (glitter) 
and in the centre, there is: 08 - an apricot-beige highlight shade.

Previously, the LRPs might have been considered a little hard, and were occasionally hard to blend, owing to their baked texture, but I've found that they're a lot softer these days, and easier to blend as a result.  If you're applying them dry, however (or without a base) then a lot of these shades can appear muddy if you over-blend.

I swatched them with a slightly damp brush, and I found this was amazing for bringing out the pigment to its full extent, some of these shades are very lovely indeed:

 Also, using a slightly damp brush (swatches are shown without a primer) means you get minimal fallout, and the glitter in the more dramatic shades will stay put!

In slightly different (less direct) light:

One quick note, if you apply the blue damp, it will stain your skin - I found that out the hard way!  I think my favourites are 11, 74 and seven.  How about you?

The Fine Print: PR samples, but I've bought loads of these too ... gotta love 'em. 
This post originated at: http://getlippie.com/ All rights reserved.

Project Perfume - The List ...

In the book Perfumes: An A-Z guide, they give the perfumes a star-rating, which is * for dreadful and ***** for classics that will stand the test of time.  I, however, am not as educated in perfume as I wish to be, and so, can't really rate perfumes against each other as Luca Turin and Tanya Sanchez do in the book.  

Also, I tend to find traditional classifications of perfume confusing, eg, what's a chypre?  How is something both oriental and floral? And so on ... so, alongside the traditional categories,  I'll also be using these denominators/ratings/categories on my project:

Disgusting
Ok
Nice/Soapy
Weird 
and the (rare) Very Nice

As far as I can break it down - it's hardly scientific as I'm sure you've already noticed, these are the categories that MrLippie lumps my fragrances into when he smells them - they can be described more fully as follows:

Disgusting = kind of self explanatory, but mainly refers to "scrubbers" (perfumes that immediately make you want to wash/scrub the disgusting stuff off your skin) or fragrances that make me vomit, as there are more than a couple.  I suspect the ingredient that causes it is tonka bean, but I'm hoping to find out properly this year.

OK = better than not wearing perfume at all, but not much (will usually smell of fruit)

Nice/Soapy = Pleasant, and nice to wear but not mind-blowing.  Incidentally, I see a lot of scents written off for being "soapy", in my mind this is a mistake, some of my favourite scents are only available in soap form, and I don't see what's wrong with that.  A lot of soap is actually fragranced by perfume makers in the first place, you know ...

Weird = Something that doesn't always smell of traditional perfume.  Leather, tar, rubber, leaves, vegetables and the like.  Does not mean unpleasant, but just something a little out of the ordinary.

Very Nice = There is a very small category of scents that will make MrLippie sit up and pay attention (out of all the perfumes I own, I think three have made MrL make this observation), and I'll make sure to highlight these ones properly.  


Where mine and MrL's opinions vary widely, the perfume will be given two ratings.  


As for how the project works, there are 120 perfumes on the list that follows, which equates to 10 perfumes a month.  I'm not intending on buying all of these, I'll garner sample sizes where I can, I'll smell others on scent strips, and occasionally, if I like something enough, I'll buy a full-size bottle.  In fact, I've like a few of the scents I smelling in January so much that I might have bought a few full size bottles of them already ... oops!

I'm not intending to do a full review of every perfume on the list, but I will mention my thoughts of very many of them when I do roundups, which will be on a very ad-hoc basis.


So, all that out of the way, here's the full list:


Aqua Allegoria Pamplune by Guerlain
L'Air du Desert Marocain by Tauer
Alliage by Lauder
Amber Absolute by  Tom Ford
Ambre Sultan  by Serge Lutens
A*Men by Thierry Mugler
Anice by Etro
Anne Pliska by Anne Pliska
Antiheros by Etat Libre d'Orange
Apres L'Ondee by Guerlain
Arpege by Lanvin
Aveda Man Pure-formance by Aveda
Azuree by Lauder
Baldessarini by Hugo Boss
Bandit  by Robert Piguet
Beyond Paradise Men by Lauder
Billet Doux by Fragonard
Black by Bulgari
Bois d'Encens by Armani Prive
Bois des Iles by Chanel
Boucheron by Boucheron
Cabaret  by Gres
Calandre by Paco Rabanne
Ca Sent Beau by Kenzo
Chamade by Guerlain
Cologne a la Francaise by Instituit Tres Bien
Crystalle by Chanel
Cuir by Lancome
Cuir de Russie by Chanel
Climat by Lancome
Dazzling Silver by Lauder
Derby by Guerlain
Diorella by Dior
Dior Homme Sport by Dior
Donna Karan Signature by Donna Karan
Eau de Guerlain by Guerlain
Eau Lente by Diptyque
Eau Savage by Dior
Envy by Gucci
Farenheit 32 by Dior
Feminiti du Bois by Serge Lutens
Fracas by Robert Piguet
Le Feu d'Issey by Issey Myaki
Fleur du Male by Jean Paul Gaultier
Fleurs de Sel by Miller Harris
Frangipane Absolute by Ormonde Jayne
Givenchy III by Givenchy
Grey Flannel by Geoffrey Beene
Gucci Pour Homme by Gucci
Habit Rouge by Guerlain
Halston Z-14 by Halston
Heritage by Guerlain
L'Heure Bleu by Guerlain
Hindu Grass by Nasomatto
Homage by Amouage
Hypnotic Poison by Dior
Incense Extreme by Tauer
Incense Rose by Tauer
Insense by Givenchy
L'Instant Pour Homme by Guerlain
Iris Silver Mist by Serge Lutens
Joy by Jean Patou (P&G?)
Jules by Dior
Kiki by Vero Profumo
Knize Ten by Knize
Knowing by Lauder
Lauder for Men by Lauder
Lavender by Caldey Island
Let it Rock by Vivienne Westwood
Like This by Etat Libre d'Orange
Lime Basil & Mandarin by Jo Malone
Lonestar Memories by Tauer
Ma Griffe by Carven
Absolue Pour le Soir by Maison Francis Kurkdjian
Menthe Fraiche by Heeley
Miss Balmain by Balmain
Missoni by Missoni
Mitsouko by Guerlain
La Myrrhe by Serge Lutens
Mystere by Aesop
Nahema by Guerlain
New York by Parfums de Nicolai
No 5 EDT by Chanel
No 19 by Chanel
Odalisque by Parfums de Nicolai
Ombre Rose by Jean Charles Brosseau
Onda by Vero Profumo
Orange Star by Tauer
Organza Indecence by Givenchy
Ormonde Woman by Ormonde Jayne
Osmanthe Yunnan by Hermes
Oud 27 by Le Labo
Oydeo by Diptyque
Par Amour Toujours by Clarins
Parfum Sacre by Caron
Pour un Homme by Caron
Private Collection by Lauder
Rush by Gucci
Safran Troublant by L'Artisan de Perfumer
Dzing by L'Artisan de Perfumer
Sarrasins by Serge Lutens
Scent by Theo Fennell
Scent 79 Woman  by Jil Sander
Shalimar by Guerlain
Stetson by Stetson
Sycomore by Chanel
Ta'if by Ormonde Jayne
Tam Dao by Diptyque
Timbuktu by L'Artisan de Perfumer
Tocade by Rochas
Tolu by Ormonde Jayne
Truth by Calvin Klein
Verveine by Heeley
Vetiver by Guerlain
Vetiver pour Elle by Guerlain
Vol de Nuit by Guerlain
White Jasmine & Mint by Jo Malone
White Linen by Lauder
Yatagan by Caron
Yohji by Yohji Yamamoto
Youth Dew by Lauder
There are perfumes by 61 manufacturers here, many main-stream, but plenty are offbeat, and some are pretty niche, but fully half of the list are perfumes by just ten manufacturers, these are:


Guerlain 15
Estee Lauder 9
Chanel 6
Dior 6
Serge Lutens 5
Tauer 5
Ormonde Jayne 4
Caron 3
Diptyque 3
Givenchy 3

All perfumes have been chosen purely because something about the description of them in the book by Luca Turin & Tania Sanchez in some way appealed to me, it's purely a personal choice (you might notice I'm a big fan of the nice/soapy category, and I love masculine fragrances somewhat too ...), this list is in no way a guarantee of quality and/or taste and reason.

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