Organic Wednesday - Tisserand

I'm reviewing several products this week, a handwash, a shower gel, and a shampoo.

The background:

Tisserand has been making SLS-, paraben-, synthetic perfume-, animal product- and mineral oil-free products since 1985, Robert Tisserand has been practising as an aromatherapist since the late 1960's and is still involved with the company helping them to put together formulations for their products.  Currently they have a range that includes everything from body oils to shampoo to aromatherapy oil blends to perfume and deodorants.

I've used a great many products from Tisserand over the years, and I've found their handcreams to be really lovely, especially the "Essential Oil Rich" one.  The lavender deodorant I didn't love so much, but it was nice as a complementary scent to Guerlain's Jicky!


The Reviews:

Tisserand Lavender and Mint Moisturisng Shampoo:

I have dry, colour-processed and curly hair, and if you've read my Cloud Nine review, you'll know it's the bane of my existence occasionally a bit difficult to handle.  I used this shampoo alongside my regular conditioner for a week, and it's basically an okay shampoo.  I don't love it,  though I do adore the smell in the shower, it's wonderfully floral and uplifting, even if you can't really smell the mint.  I found that before using conditioner it made my hair feel a bit dry after rinsing, but after conditioner and drying, my hair feels nice and soft, and with a faint flowery scent.

To be fair, the product doesn't offer a miracle cure for hair issues, so it doesn't deliver any, but as a mid-price shampoo (mine cost £4.95) it's a very nice one, if your hair doesn't have any particular special requirements.

Tisserand Wild Rose and Lemon Leaf Hand Wash

According to the blurb on the back, this is a non-drying, soap-free handwash containing rose, rose geranium, pink grapefruit and linden flower extracts.  As a result of these this smells absolutely edible, and it's a little like washing your hands in liquid turkish delight.   I love this stuff, and it really does deliver what it says on the tin, hands aren't dried out, and the scent lingers just long enough to keep you happy.  It lasts for ages, as well.  There are four people living chez Lippie, and our bottle is only a third gone after month in the house!

My bottle cost £2.99 on special offer at Wholefoods, but it usually retails around £5.95.

Essential Oil Rich Rejuvenating Shower & Bath Wash

(Pictured at top of post)

The problem with looking at lots of organic products is that because they're based on essential oils and a lot of essential oils come from flowers means that the products occasionally smell a bit "same-y", and they can be decidedly girly and floral.  Not this stuff, it has a deep rich, and herbal, almost musky, smell, which is quite unlike anything else.  I love the scent, and so does MrLippie, it's nice to find some products men can use too, for once!  As a shower gel it's pretty much of a muchness with any other gel you'll use, but the smell is lovely and refreshing (and slightly redolent of freshly sliced lemons once it's lathered up).  The product contains oils of lemongrass, yarrow and may chang (known as the "oil of tranquility" for it's calming properties), and extracts of bilberry and linden flower.  I love to use this stuff in the mornings, as it sets you up for the day quite nicely.

This normally retails at £5.95, but my bottle came as part of a package sent to me for review purposes.

Have you tried any Tisserand?

Face of the fortnight - as promised!

Sorry about the extreme close up nature of these pics, I'm in the middle of a major hair crisis!  A really major hair crisis ... But this is how my Maybelline/Bobbi Brown makeup looks when it's put together.  I've been trialling Lancome Teint Idole, and Clarins Wonder Perfect mascara in this pic too, so expect a post on those later on in the week ...

I'm wearing the Cargo Plant Love mineral baked Illuminator in wind on my cheeks, still totally in love with that product, and how it looks in these pics.

Nail of the Day - Mavala Tokyo

There won't be too many Nail of the Day posts around here for a couple of reasons, the main one being that I'm lousy at applying it, and the other one is that I have truly dreadful nails that don't grow, and when they do, the second I start to think they're looking reasonable they start to split, peel, flake and then snap.  It's very frustrating! 

When I do wear polish though, I tend to favour dark shades, as I think they're a rare example of something that actually looks better on short nails (at least, that's how I justify it to myself, anyway!).   Mavala sent me some samples of their mini-polishes to try recently, and it was love at first sight for this shade!  It's a gloriously rich inky purple, and under natural light the colour is gorgeously vibrant and not at all "gothy". I'm wearing it in my rather staid office job right now!

Mavala specialise in mini pots of polish, and they promise a " unique formula" that is free from parabens, formaldehydes, toluene, camphor, cellophane, animal ingredients and heavy metal.  They also say that their product delivers microscopic air pockets to allow nails to breathe, so is allegedly a healthier option for your nails than some other varnishes on the market.  I love mini-products - seriously, give me a miniature version of anything, and I'll love it way more than the full size version, I'm a bit odd like that - so the dinky size of the bottle really appealed to me, and it means the polish won't dry up completely before I get to the end of the bottle.

I found the polish easy to apply (the pic shows two coats, with neither a top nor base coat, with flash), and although the brush on my bottle had a few stray bristles that I'll need to remove for next time I use this it, I really like it. I'll keep you posted on how the wear is!  I was slightly disappointed in that I was expecting the colour to have a matte finish, but I actually really like the satin-y shine of the polish, I'm looking forward to seeing if anyone notices it at work ...

You can find Mavala polishes for around £3.75 at good chemists and department stores.

Makeover: Gillian

It's Sunday, and that means it's makeover day here at Get Lippie!  Meet Gillian:

Gillian came to me a couple of weeks ago, wanting to look like a sexy 50's bombshell.   Now, this is a look I happen to love, as it's actually pretty simple and quick to put together.  First things first though, the classic bombshell look is dependent on flawless porcelain skin for it to work.  So we used a base of Max Factor Seamless in porcelain to even out Gillian's skintone, and give us a flawless base to work from:

 

We added a little concealer, then powdered down with some Benefit Bluffdust to tone down any lingering redness and give a matte finish, and Gillian was feeling more like a bombshell already!

There are two main elements to the bombshell look, eyeliner, and lipstick, both are crucial, so we'll start with the eyes.  I started by showing Gillian how to define the crease of her eyelid using MAC Behold as a contour shade:

Once this was in place (and Gillian had had a lesson in how to find it for herself) we moved on to liner.  Liquid liner can be tricky for a novice, so I showed Gillian how to use powder and an angled brush to paint on a line that looks just as dramatic and flattering as liquid liner, but takes a lot less practice to perfect.  We used Virgin Vie shadow in charcoal, then a coat or two of mascara:

 

Personally, I think this look suits Gillian down to a tee, and we could just have added a touch of lip balm or gloss right here and we'd have a lovely glamorous look suitable for daywear already!  However, the bombshell look demands lipstick.  So we added a slick of Guerlain lipstick in CanCan red as the finishing touch:

So there you go, quick, simple, with a minimum of products, but the maximum of impact.

Here's the before and afters:

Thank you, Gillian.

Mini Bobbi Brown Haul - and Face of the Week

Okay, face of the fortnight, if I'm being honest ... I bought these shadows from Bobbi Brown recently, in the palette there is (L-R) Flesh, Naked and Gunmetal, and on first glance I think they look a little uninspiring, but this has been one of my very favourite purchases for a while.  I had initially been intent on buying Flesh and Woodrose from BB as some new neutral base shadows, but on swatching in House of Fraser, I realised that Woodrose is just a little too cool for my pale-custard coloured skin, so I swapped it out for Naked.  Gunmetal was a colour that I wasn't intending to buy at all (I've done two grey-eyeshadow based makeovers lately, and they got terrible feedback, who knew it was so contentious?), but I kind of fell in love with this shade in the store.

Here's how they swatch (dry, on unprimed skin) without flash and with:

You'll notice that Flesh disappears almost entirely on my skin, and you may be thinking that's a bad thing, but actually, it's not.  It's perfect for creating an even and matte base for other shadows, and when I add  Naked into the crease for a contour, I really love the effect I get, they're a lovely pair of colours for that polished and natural look I'm such a fan of.  I've mainly been using gunmetal as a softer lining alternative to black recently, and for a big night out recently (one where I knew I was going to be going out with a lot of women who don't wear an awful lot of makeup), I created this look:

Basically, I used Flesh (over Urban Decay Primer Potion), over the entire eyelid, up to the brow as a base, then defined the crease with Naked, and created a winged liner look from corner to corner with Gunmetal and I loved how the grey contrasted and brought out the brown in my eyes.  I'm also enjoying using matte shades for winter, I think they look very different to the shimmery looks I've been creating lately.

I've been doing a softer version of this look for daily office wear for the last week, combining it with Maybelline Hollywood Red, and I'll bring you a full-face version of this look soon.  I'm not showing the full face look here as I hate how shiny I am in the pics, and I've changed my foundation to a more matte formulation recently.  I'm all about the matte at the moment, it seems!

(note: I've had my eyebrows done since I took these pics, my eyebrows are the bane of my existence, Denis Healy and me, separated at birth.  Troo story)