Andrea Fulerton - Petrol in Water

I have never had as many compliments on my manicure as I have when I wore this last week, I have to say it's a very strong contender for my nail varnish of the year!  I've featured the Andrea Fulerton Colour Layering System before, but the Petrol in the Water combination is by far the one to beat.


Each "system" comes with an opaque base polish, and a sheerer layering topcoat, and you can apply them in various combinations for the best effect.  Petrol in Water looks like a dull brown with a glittery topcoat in the box:

In fact, I'd seen it in store several times, and just passed over it, as I have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to brown polish.  But, even on its own, this is a glorious shade, I discovered:



With thanks to my glamorous (anonymous) hand model, the boy done well.

A rich chocolate shade, shot through with gold, I'd like a bottle of this on its own, for it is beautiful.  Above you can see two coats of each the brown and the white, and you can see just how completely the shades transform when layered (two coats of brown with one of white on top).  It's amazing, a blue-teal duochrome, which shades to purple, with hints of gold when the light hits it right.  No topcoat was used in this pic.

It looks a bit frosty here, which it's not ordinarily, but it does show off some of the colour change.  It's one of those shades that looks lit from within, and you can spend many a happy hour (where you should be concentrating on meetings, say), just staring at your nails and watching the colours change.

On me, this wore exceptionally well, too,  all the pics on this post were taken after around three or four days of wear, and it wasn't until the fifth that there was major damage, and even then I was loath to take it off!  There is nothing particularly special about the brush, which is an old-style round brush with squared off ends, no Pro-Wide or flat bristles going on here, and there's an argument that the dual-bottle style means the brush is a little off-balance when you're applying, but these are minor quibbles compared to the ease of application with the thin polish, and the truly excellent wear.

Andrea Fulerton Trio Colour Layering Systems are exclusively available at Superdrug, and cost £7.99.

The Fine Print: I heartlessly stole this from Oxford Jasmine when she wasn't looking.  I am a bad beauty blogger.  It's okay though, she didn't run after me or anything.

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

Lipstick of the Week - Aug 21 2011

Another Sunday, another look at what has been rattling about at the bottom of my bag this week!  It's been an exceptionally neutral week, as we shall see.  Here we have:

 L-R 

Laura Mercier Pink Cocoa
Chanel Rouge Coco in Mademoiselle
Laura Geller lipstick in Berry Banana
Clinique Moisture Surge in Tender Mauve
Dolce & Gabanna in Orchid
Serge Lutens in 03
and at the bottom, Lipstick Queen gloss in Jean Queen

Here are the swatches:

As you can see, the Laura Geller is very, very yellow in my stick, which makes it borderline unwearable.

Oh, and yes, the Serge Lutens is black.  I didn't wear it to the office, that's all I have to say about that one!  It's really a stain, and it's very good underneath reds to deepen the shade.

Oh, and a little more storage porn for you, this is how I keep my lipsticks for the week when they're not in my bag:

Every day, I give myself a lucky dip out of the selection at hand, and arrange my makeup around whatever I pick out.  Once every couple of weeks, I change all the lipsticks in the box.  I have too many lip products ...



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

Liz Earle Sheer Skin Tint

Liz Earle is dipping her toes into colour cosmetics this September, and, prior to a full range of colour products coming to market in late 2012, the first product in the line is this, Sheer Skin Tint with SPF15.


Now, I'm a great fan of Liz Earle, she's an inspiration in the beauty business, and I think the idea behind adding a colour-range to the already impressive range of aromatherapy-based skincare is a great one, but I have genuinely mixed feelings about the Sheer Skin Tint.  Described as a pathway into cosmetics from the skincare, Liz describes this a tinted moisturiser, and certainly, the coverage is as light as you'd expect from something described as sheer in the name of it!

However, I find that Sheer Skin Tint is very thick, and can be difficult to blend as a result.  As the resulting coverage is so light, this isn't a big problem.  That said, I do find that I am constantly aware of this product whilst it's on my face, which isn't a feeling that I like very much.  I also find that it takes a long time to "set" on my skin - upwards of ten minutes - and this, very much, drives me bananas.  In the mornings, I'm very much a grab and go girl, and waiting ten minutes for what is essentially a tinted moisturiser to sink in is a bit of a waste of my time.  That's ten minutes I could have had in bed!


Also, when it finally does set, I find myself suffering from the unfortunate condition known as "stickyface". This is where a product makes your skin feel sticky and low-grade unpleasant for several hours after application. It's unusual to find it in a sheer tint! I've spoken to a couple of other beauty bloggers who've suffered from the same affliction though, as at first I thought I just had a dodgy tube. I also found that is has a habit of "grabbing" any powder products I applied over the top if I tried to put makeup over it too soon, which is annoying, because, although Liz herself describes this as a matte moisturiser, it's actually more of a satin (verging on dewy) finish, and owing to being slightly oily-skinned, I find it unwearable without a dusting of powder over the top.

All that said though, whilst I don't think this is a great product for me, I do think that some people will love this, and in particular my drier-skinned sisters (provided they're of the paler persuasion, there are only three shades available, and none of them will really cater for women of colour) are recommended to try it.  It's richly moisturising, and I haven't noticed it clinging to any dry patches of skin.  It does give a nice glow, and will even out your skintone, without giving a heavy appearance of being "fully made up".


Another nice thing about the product is that when you order it, Liz Earle will send you sample sachets so that you can ensure you have a proper colour match without opening the product.  If you find you've ordered the wrong shade, you can return the full-size product, and get it replaced with the correct colour for you.


All in all, it's not a bad product, it's just something I didn't enjoy using, and as such, I'd suggest anyone buying this should do as much research as they can before they splash out the £21 this will cost on release next month.

The Fine Print: PR sample.


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

Laura Geller Vanilla Nudes Collection

Following this tip-off from the lovely girls over at London Beauty Review, I cracked and bought my second Laura Geller set from QVC.  I bought one last year, loved it, and totally forgot to review it, so I'm not making that mistake again!

The set comprises:

• Balance n'Brighten Foundation (choice of Tan, Regular, Fair and Porcelain - I bought Fair)
• Baked Cheek Dream blush and highlight compact in Neapolitan
• At Long Lash mascara in black
• Italian Marble Lipstick in Banana Berry
• Baked Eyeshadow and Eye Rimz in Vanilla Toffee and Black Cherry

 Here's a closer look:

Laura's range is based around baked minerals, and I've always found her products to be really high quality.  Last time I bought a Laura Geller TSV, I bought the foundation in Regular, and have found it to be just a tad too dark for year-round wear, so I selected fair this time:

I love the camouflage appearance of this in the compact!  It's a mixture of pigments, designed to correct and cover flaws, and it's delightfully soft and silky on the skin.  It gives light-to-medium coverage, I've found, but you can also use it as a very nice finishing powder.

The highlighter-blush combo is very nicely done too:

These have been swatched very heavily in order to show up on the photo, you have a pale yellow (it's not gold as I anticipated) a strawberry pink, and a browned-berry shade, which makes a good contour colour if used alone.  Mixed together, you get a nice, sheeny medium-pink which is very flattering, but I couldn't get this to show up in swatches.  Suffice it to say that it's a lovely healthy pink shade, which will be suitable for cool skin-tones and paler warm-toned ladies.  If I had a criticism of the palette, I'd suggest that it would have been nice to have a wider strip of the pink so it could be used alone, but it's a minor quibble really.

The Vanilla Toffee  and Black Cherry Eye Rimz is a lovely product with a dreadful name.  On the skin, Vanilla Toffee is a creamy copper shade, perfect for a polished but not too over the top daytime look.  Black Cherry has a slight hint of pink micro-shimmer in with the black base.  It's not too pigmented though, so, again, is perfect for a softly smokey daytime liner look.  Both shades can be applied wet for a more intense "foiled" look.

The Italian marbled lipstick is the one product that gave me pause before ordering, as Laura was making a big song and dance about how the lipstick contains banana extract, and I was worried that the lip colour would be banana-flavoured as a result.  I'm happy to say that the lipstick is actually both scent- and flavour-less.  However, it's a very nude shade on me, owing to all the yellow in my stick, and, as a result, it's about as flattering a thing that is not very flattering.  At all.  It has a nice, light balm-texture though, and is very moisturising, so if concealer-lips are your bag (baby) then you'll love this.

At Long Lash mascara is very wet, and very thin, mascara - I normally prefer my mascaras a bit drier - but it has very good lengthening properties, and it doesn't flake or run during the day.  There was some hoo-ha on the show I was watching that made a song and dance about the mascara having a semi-permanent colouring effect on the lashes, but I can't say that I've noticed my lashes being any darker after removing the product.  The brush is nice and thin, and is shaped well to coat the lashes though, but it is not very volumising, so for me, this is very much a nice "day-time" mascara, for a nice natural look.  You will need to use an oil-based remover when taking it off though, as it's stubborn and likes to stay put ...

Overall, I'm really glad I picked this up and, some minor quibbles aside regarding not enough pink in the blusher, and the lipstick making me look like death warmed up, this is a really nice kit, and well worth the £33 or so I paid for it.  Laura's makeup is always well worth a look, and you can find a collection of her cosmetics on QVC, 

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

Braun Oral B Triumph 5000 Toothbrush

Gotta love a toothbrush named after a motorbike, right?

Well, I do, anyway.  After years of slogging away with the cheapest and least powerful of Oral B's electric toothbrush collection (an Oral B Professional Care 500 - which is still pretty darn good, more about that later), and then finally indulging in tooth whitening, I decided it was time to upgrade my toothbrush too.  I'd seen the Triumph 5000 system at a press event last year, and thought it was time to make the switch.

And I'm very glad I have, as this is an excellent toothbrush.  Even from the first brush I could tell the difference from the older, cheaper brush, and I do feel a get a better, fresher clean from the Triumph.  Certainly, it's a lot more powerful!  I also feel it's doing its bit to keep my teeth white, which is all kinds of aces.

The little monitor you get in the kit - aside from being a bit bossy, and telling you where you should be brushing and when - is very handy, as I have a habit of overbrushing certain areas, and also (much worse) I have a tendency to brush far too hard. The "smart guide" has a warning light that lets you know when you're brushing too hard, and I've been astonished at just how little pressure you actually need to apply to brush properly.  As a result, my gums bleed a lot less than they used to, and my teeth still feel good and clean.  The "smart guide" also makes a great bathroom clock.

Having upgraded my toothbrush, I also took the libery of introducing Mr Lippie to the concept of using an electric toothbrush in the first place, so he's been using the Oral-B Professional Care 500 for the last couple of months, and, after some initial scepticism, he's now a total convert.  During a recent weekend away (where we took normal, manual, brushes) he announced that he couldn't wait to get home so he could brush his teeth "properly"!

The Braun Oral B Triumph 5000 toothbrush retails on Boots.com for around £179.00, and the Professional Care 500 retails for £45.95, but is currently on offer for around £22.98.

The Fine Print: PR samples, but the original purchase was my own.  Likewise all my teeth are my own.  Apart from the one that's not.  Do I need to declare this? I have a false tooth.  So there.  To take your mind of that, here's a joke: "Why is 4,840 square yards like a bad tooth ? Because it's an acre".  It's the way I tell 'em.  No really, it is.

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

What's In My Kryolan Train Case?

I frequently get asked about my makeup storage, so I thought I'd finally acquiesce and show (some) of it to you. Last week, I finally splashed out and bought myself a medium Kryolan train case from Charles Fox, and I am absolutely loving my new precious:

As you can see, it's a top-opening case, and it's lockable.  Inside there are two layers of shelves with a variety of storage compartments, and in the bottom section, there are six spaces for bulkier products.  Would you like to see inside?  Oh, who am I kidding, like there's a chance in heck I'm not showing you what's in here:

It's currently filled with a selection of old favourites, and products that have made it in there for testing (if you enlarge the picture by clicking on it, you'll be able to see the contents in a great more detail).  You'll notice that it's decidedly foundation, eye makeup and blusher-heavy.  That's because I keep my lipsticks separate, as there are so many of them! I realised, quite early on, that if I filled this with lipsticks there would very soon be no room for anything else ... I actually have a section empty at the top right there, and I'm wondering what to fill it with!

So, these are the products I currently reach for day-to-day basis (shade spotters will see a lot of taupe.  I'm nothing if not predictable), and the rest of my collection resides elsewhere, in other receptacles, I'll show you these over the next couple of weeks.

A couple of thoughts about the case itself first though: mainly, this is heavy, even when empty, it must weigh a good couple of kilos, when filled it must weigh the best part of four kilos, or almost ten pounds.  It's a pretty hefty bit of kit.  The top shelves are very shallow, you only really have room to pile up two compacts on top of each other, but you can very the size of the compartments very well, as you can see I did to fit in some pencils and mascaras.  These shallow pans aren't padded at all though, so I'd worry about things getting damaged in here if they were knocking around in transit.  As the only transit I'm planning to take this on is moving it to the bathroom in the new flat I'm moving to in a couple of weeks, this isn't an issue for me, but it might be for someone using this professionally.


I like the bottom compartments though, they're surprisingly deep, even fitting in my Burberry foundation, which is one of the tallest cosmetic bottles in my collection. They're very well padded too, and items tend to stay put.  It's not tall enough for hair care products though, but you'd be able to get a fair bit of skincare in there if you wished.  

My Kryolan Train Case came from Charles Fox in Covent Garden, and cost £55.   

The Fine Print: I bought the case, but the contents are a mixture of purchases and PR samples.  Now, what to go in the empty section ...?

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

Andy Tauer Pentachords - Two Reviews (Kinda)

A couple of weeks ago, I asked for a guest blogger to help me write a review of the new Pentachords series from Andy Tauer.  I selected CandyPerfumeBoy because he has a wonderful style of writing, and I knew I'd enjoy his thoughts.  I wasn't wrong.  I also had another reason for needing a guest blogger, and that should become clear as we go along.  I'll let CandyPerfumeBoy take the lead, and I'll interject my comments as and when ...

What I love about Andy Tauer’s fragrances is their ability to surprise. They are never what you expect and the Pentachords are certainly no exception to the rule, all three fragrances in the series are imaginative and each has it’s own distinct and unique character.

White
The Easy One

CandyPerfumeBoy: White is the easiest of the three Pentachords to love and is definitely my favourite. Tauer has already shown us that he is a dab hand at creating a beautiful floral gourmand with Une Rose Vermeille and White is just that. However, where Une Rose Vermeille is huge and crimson, White is soft and subtle.

White is essentially a blend of iris and vanilla with a touch of violet up top to give it a sweet sparkle. The vanilla is considerably more prominent than the iris and it has boozy, rum-like facets that make it irresistible.

The Iris gives White a soft, velvety texture and although it is not in the foreground, it’s always there. The violet is used with a really light touch and it gives White just the right amount of lift in the top notes to stop it from becoming too edible or powdery.

As White settles the vanilla takes centre stage and the other notes fade into the background. The vanilla is lovely, it smells sweet and boozy but at times it can feel slightly synthetic and harsh.
I will most certainly be saving my pennies for a bottle.

Get Lippie:  At the end of his review, CPB (Can I call you CPB, btw?) uses two words that sum up my entire reaction to this fragrance: "... synthetic and harsh."  When I sprayed this onto my skin, I got a gaggingly sweet rush of boozy e-numbers, which was, to my mind, the perfume equivalent of spraying myself with popping candy  and rum. 

It was shrill, it was strident, and, sadly, it was linear, meaning that no matter how long I wore it, the scent never changed.  In its favour, if you like the scent - and some people will, sweet scents sell by the bucket load - it is tenacious, so it will be with you for a very long time.  Mr Lippie hated it.  And, after a time, my stomach decided it hated it too, which is when I decided to scrub it off.  Sorry Andy, I don't normally have such a visceral reaction to a scent, but, man, this caused a reaction!

Verdant
The Clever One

CandyPerfumeBoy: At the end of the garden in my childhood home we had a plot of land that was always overgrown; there were patches of nettles, wild thickets of brambles and lots of old trees to climb. As kids my three siblings and I would spend our summers exploring the land, getting lost in the long grass and gaining more than our fair share of cuts and scrapes from the brambles. 

To me, Verdant smells just like our adventures at the end of the garden, like hot sun on nettles, grass and earth.

Verdant opens with intense green notes, like nettles and a ton of spiky pepper. At first it smells slightly harsh and dry but as it develops it becomes sweeter and earthier. Up close I sense the sweet, bruised leaves of garden mint.

The green notes last throughout the entirety of Verdant’s development and they are a pleasure to smell.  The base is sweet and green with vanilla and a touch of leather, which stops Verdant from ever smelling gourmand.

What is really clever about Verdant is that it manages to smell 99% natural whilst being completely synthetic. It demonstrates the genius of Andy Tauer as a chemist and his knack for creating beautiful, intelligent perfumes.

Get Lippie:  I agree that this smells more natural than White.  To me, however, this is still a shrill and strident, rather linear blend of notes that did not work - at all - with my skin's chemistry.  Less sweet than white, I found it pine-y both in good and bad ways (Mmm, forests!  Urgh, toilet cleaner!) but mainly, I found this LOUD.  And, again, exceptionally tenacious.   I didn't hate it, but ... MrLippie begged me not to wear it near him ever again*.  It's a wish I can probably grant, in all honesty.

Auburn
The Unusual One

CandyPerfumeBoy: Auburn is the odd one in the bunch, it doesn’t really smell like any fragrance I have smelled before. I commend its uniqueness but I’m not entirely sure that I like it, that said I do find myself coming back to it to try and work it out.

Auburn starts with subtle notes of cinnamon and ginger, it’s spicy but not in the conventional way, the spices are muted as if they are hiding behind a veil of milky notes. There is an odd medicinal tinge that hovers in the background throughout Auburn’s development, it never feels intrusive but it feels slightly unsettling on the skin.

At the beginning Auburn smells slightly powdery but as the dry down progresses it becomes warmer and milkier. Just like White and Verdant, Auburn shares the signature Pentachords vanilla base but in Auburn it doesn’t feel as strong.

For me Auburn is just a little bit too subtle, I can’t help but wish the spices had just a bit more oomph and the scent itself had more of a presence. Auburn feels autumnal and the name fits perfectly, I can imagine it being worn as the days become shorter, the weather turns colder and the leaves turn to their wonderful shades of gold, red and auburn.

Get Lippie: Ironically, the one I like most, which I'm sure most of you will be thinking that I'm damning it with faint praise (and I'd probably concede the point to you, actually) right now. But this is warm, a little spicy, and less LOUD AND SHOUTY than the previous two.  Less synthetic and screechy than Green and White, it's more approaching what I would have expected from a Tauer creation, in that it's a little hard to grasp the connections, and it's an interesting puzzler, rather than an in your face concotion.  I'm still not sure I'd wear it again, but it's an interesting addition to my collection, and I'm glad to have smelled it.

Conclusion

Reading CandyPerfumeBoy's thoughts on these fragrances has been fascinating, and it's why I love reading the variety of perfume blogs that I do, no two people ever smell the same things the same way, and, after my somewhat ... extreme ... reaction to two of the scents in the collection, it is why I wanted a co-reviewer!  I was simply physically unable to get past the initial scentings in order to divine deeper thoughts about the fragrances.  I'm very grateful to CPB for his input into this post, and for being able to do what I was unable to.

However, whilst my comments in this post could be construed as negative, it is only my experience, and the things I dislike about the Pentachords may be things other people adore about them. I personally think that what Andy's done with the Pentachord series is a brave experiment, and I definitely think that the fragrances are worth a sniff, but I think that only time will tell whether these end up as classic Tauer material or merely random curiosities.  I'll be interested to see which.

Samples for this post were supplied by Scent and Sensibility. 

* The words "you smell like Toilet Duck" were used.

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