Jo Malone London Christmas Crackers

There's nothing quite like the cream and black livery of a Jo Malone London package to get the heart racing, and a gift of one of these crackers is a lovely treat for any Jo Malone fan.

Containing a miniature Lime Basil & Mandarin cologne, a tiny orange blossom body creme, and a weeny Pomegranate Noir bath & body wash, these are a little treat for anyone who appreciates a small but luxurious treat.  On the pricey side at £28 each, they're nonetheless a cute and aromaful present for a fragrance fiend in your life.

  
I've been layering the Lime Basil & Mandarin over the Orange Blossom Body Creme, and the combination works very nicely.  It makes up for the lack of party hat, at least ...

So, what are you getting for Christmas? 

The Fine Print: PR Sample.  I'm a heathen and cracked it open early ... 
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Body Shop Ginger Sparkle Collection (and a little hint ...)

The sharp-eyed amongst my readers might have noticed a tiny Christmas flavour sneaking into Get Lippie this week,and you'd be right.  I'm only posting about those presents that have genuinely caught my eye though, and yesterday's giant lip balm, and today's giant gingerbread man have both made me laugh so I thought they were worth a mention.

Chock-full of shower-gel, body polish, soap and body butter all in the addictively spicy Ginger Sparkle scent, this comes in at £15 which is an absolute bargain in anyone's book.  They're the usual Body Shop quality, and quite highly scented, so don't buy this for anyone who doesn't like ginger.

Now, no gift guide is complete without the writer dropping a little hint about what they would like, so if anyone was interested in buying ME an early Christmas present this year, I'd like this please:

This little beauty is the Masters of Malt Ginvent Calender which contains 24 3cl bottles of gin.  I like gin.  I like Christmas. And frankly, what could be better than the gift of gin EVERY DAY in the run up to Christmas?  (Actually, I know what the answer to that is, and that would be the gift of champagne every day in the run up to Christmas, but I suspect we'd have to rob a bank for that one to happen).  Anyway, this costs £79.95 AND I WANT ONE. In fact, I WANT TWO.  Make it happen, people.  Pleeeeeeeease?
 
 The Fine Print:  PR sample, and a begging letter.  I like to multi-task.

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Burts Bees Giant Lip Balm Tube

I love a good lip balm or two (or five, or ten, or twenty or so) and I was delighted when this giant tube of beeswax goodness turned up from Burts Bees recently, I may even have clapped my hands a little.  I'm a sad old ... person, sometimes.  But, there's something about the glee you get from an oversized version of a small product that's very happy-making.

This limited edition tube contains eight Burts Bees lip products:

  
All the products are beeswax based, but the different variations included in the tube are:

• Original Beeswax Lip Balm Tube
• Original Beeswax Lip Balm Tin
• Honey Lip Balm
• Nourishing Lip Balm with Mango Butter
• Replenishing Lip Balm with Pomegranate Oil
• Rejuvenating Lip Balm with Açaí Berry
• NEW Refreshing Lip Balm with Grapefruit
• NEW Ultra Conditioning Lip Balm with Kokum Butter
• NEW Ultra Moisturising Lip Treatment 

The tube retails for £24.99, which is a saving of around £8 on buying the products separately, and it's the most cheerful lipbalm this lip-obsessed blogger has ever seen. The lip balms are good too, I've used them on and off for years (I find the peppermint-scented tin is surprisingly good on your cuticles), and I always have at least one tube on the go.

Of course,  me being me, I've now filled the tube with the rest of my lipbalm collection. You know it made sense.  It'd make a great gift idea for the lip balm obsessive in your life too ...

The Fine Print: PR Sample. You will never know the struggle I've had not to simply repeat the Eddie Izzard "I'm all covered in BEEEEEEEEZZZ" routine here.
 
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A Charitable Christmas List

This time last year, I wrote a heartfelt post about homelessness and, and how Give as You Live are helping charities by enabling you to do your Christmas shopping quickly, easily, and allowing you to donate to the charities of your choice at no extra cost to you.

Well, it's time to remind you of Give As You Live once again,  and talk to you about the charity I've chosen to support this year.  In a nutshell, Give As You Live collects money from retailers to donate to a charity of your choice, at no cost to you.  You can either shop through the Give As You Live website, or through their toolbar, which you can download to your desktop, and use through your browser.  You select your chosen charity, and shop away to your heart's content.  The full cost of the charitable donation is borne by the retailer, which include brands such as Amazon, Debenhams, Liberty, and hundreds more besides! 

Both the website and the toolbar act as price comparison tools too, so you can actually save yourself some money, and do some good for charity too!  Give As You Live have already donated more than £3 million pounds to charities in the last year and a bit, which is amazing, but there's room for more.

This year, the charity I'm supporting though Give As You Live is Diabetes UK.  In the interests of disclosure and transparency, I should let you know that I work for the organisation (I look after the accounts for several different sections of the charity).  However, this isn't why I've chosen them this year.  What I didn't realise before I started working for Diabetes UK is that diabetes used to be a death sentence. Even now, when medical research is such that we can control the condition a lot more easily than we used to, diabetes is still an incredibly serious, and incurable, condition.  10% of the entire NHS budget goes towards dealing with diabetes, and it's complications -which include amputations, blindness and kidney problems - and that is an astonishingly high figure.   

I'm choosing Diabetes UK because, in the short time I've been there, I've come to understand the value of what they do to support the lives of people with diabetes, and I hope that, if one day my life is touched by the condition - I'm a prime candidate being short and fat and rather elderly,  though I'm hoping the diet I've been on in the last six months will help lessen my risk - they'll be around to help me too. I already know they'd help anyone who is a current sufferer, and their families.

Anyhoo,Give As You Live and I have put together a little gift list of things that have caught my eye over the last 12 months, and, if you decide to buy any of them through the links on this page then a donation will be made to Diabetes UK.  No pressure though, if you want to donate to anyone else, feel free! 

OPI nail polish ‘I’m Indi-a Mood For Love’ £11

A brilliant and beautiful pink, which will raise £0.11p for charity with Give as you Live

UGG Australia Trainers £95

Heaven for your feet.  The pair I bought last year haven't been off my tootsies since they arrived. Raises £2.37 for charity with Give as you Live

OPI ‘The Top Ten’ £28.50

Ten of the most popular nail varnish shades from one of the most popular nail varnish companies around. Raises £0.28p for charity with Give as you Live

Chantecaille Just Skin Tinted Moisturiser £57

Simply the best tinted moisturiser I've ever tried. It will raise £1.42 for charity with Give as you Live.

  

Zelens Moisture Infusion £85

I'm in love with Zelens this year.  They haven't - yet - knocked my adoration of Kate Somerville off it's perch, but as KS has just been discontinued in the UK, and Zelens are still here, it's only a matter of time. Raises £2.55 for your charity with Give as you Live.

Estee Lauder Double Wear Foundation £27.50

The most popular foundation in the UK, and the most popular foundation currently in my flat.  Make someone's day and buy them one now. Raises £0.82 for your charity with Give as you Live.

Le Snob: Perfume £6.75

A witty and well-written introductory guide to fragrance by the writer of Persolaise.com.  I love my copy, and have been begging MrLippie to read it for weeks so he stops describing everything as "orangey" or "flowers". Raises £0.16 for your charity with Give as you Live.

Clinique chubby stick £16

The original, and still the best lipstick/balm hybrid, in the twist-up pencil.  Lovely stuff.   Get one for your lipstick-phobic best friend now. Raises £0.64 for your charity with Give as you Live.

Tom Ford Eye Colour Quad ‘Titanium Smoke’ £62

Everyone needs a bit of Tom Ford in their makeup bag, and this is my favourite palette out of the four I have, it's probably the most versatile, too. Raises £2.48 for your charity with Give as you Live.

  
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Lipsticks of the Week - Berries

In the winter, for it is now very definitely winter, a girls' fancy very much turns to darker shades.  Whilst I'm yet to put away my reds, pinks and coral (and, if truth be told, it's unlikely I will), I've been very much fancying juicy plummy and berry shades for my lips this last week.  It started with Top Shop lipstick in Wicked (second from the right, above), and then kind of grew, until the entire week was taken up with purpl-ish lips.

From left to right we have:

Revlon Just Bitten Kissable LipStain in Crush
Top Shop Gloss Stick in Glisten
Vapour Elixir Lipgloss in Bitten
Tom Ford Lipstick in Violet Fatal
Cosmetics A La Carte Lipstick in "Get Lippie"
Top Shop lipstick in Wicked
and Ilia Lip Conditioner in Arabian Knights

Here's a slightly closer look:

  
And, of course, the obligatory swatches:

 
As you can see, Bitten is the reddest of these shades, whereas Glisten and Violet Fatal fall into the pinker zone.  Crush and Get Lippie are the purplest shades (Get Lippie is the personal shade of lipstick created specially for me by Daniel Sandler and Cosmetics a la Carte last year, I need a back up).  Wicked is a wonderful shade on the lips, even though it looks terrifyingly brown in the bullet.

 
What shades are you craving at the moment?      

This post: Lipsticks of the Week - Berries 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