Soap & Glory Sit Tight Super Intense 4-D

By Luke & Laurin

Luke says: 

Soap & Glory always approach beauty with an excellent sense of humour, and frankly I’m sucked in by it. I know that there are people who don’t like their packaging talking to them, but I rather enjoy it if it’s done well. So, when you have a cream that is essentially about spending a little bit of time rubbing something onto your bottom twice a day, you can imagine that S&G had a few funnies up their sleeve. Enter the new Sit Tight Super Intense 4-D. Revisited, and slightly re-formulated for 2014 this is the new Firming and Smoothing treatment gel.

Right off the mark here, I am very careful to not use the words ‘anti cellulite’ as nowhere does this claim to be that type of product. And let’s face it, none of us are really sucked into that hype now are we? The product is merely claiming a feeling of firmness after 14 days use, recommended application of twice a day. With lofty sounding ingredients like Pinkpepperslim-Lip-FB^TM derived from pink pepper berries (as if that wasn’t clear) and the Pressocapsular Firmplus^TM and Firmigen^TM Caffeine thrown in for good measure along with Sweet Orange Peel (the irony) Glycerin and Olive Oil. The Super Intense also claims, as did the previous version, to work when you’re actually sitting down as well by bursting the little nano sized capsules of all the goodness mentioned above.

In theory this is an excellent idea: that even by being sat on ones posterior the product will be working to firm up sagging or droopage. So, fast forward to me in the mornings post shower using the massager (handily included on the end of the tube) rubbing this vigorously into my backside, and love handles. All this in front of a full length mirror, although why I am not sure. It’s not like I am in any doubt as to where my butt is!

The sensation: How can I describe this? The box claims you can feel it working almost instantly, and this is no lie. The previous incarnation of this product was quite intense, so the now one being SUPER intense does to some extent live up to its name. How to describe it? Well, imagine if you will, squatting in a hot bath, standing up and then having a fan of cold air blowing rather forcefully on your slightly red skin. It’s not quite a menthol sort of coolness that occurs, but more a peppery sensation where you are unable to quite pin point whether it’s burning or just plain cold. Uncomfortable? No. Unnerving? Slightly. Fun? Most definitely. It never failed to bring a smile to my face. Also, having to go and mingle with housemates (once dressed) and grinning to yourself about the party that was going on on your rear end, for some reason pleased me. I can, however, understand that I find pleasure in other places where people might not, and for some this may be a little much. That said though, the next morning was less of a sensational overlaod. I think perhaps I had gotten used to it, or perhaps toughened up somewhat. Still some tingling, but not nearly as loud as the very first application. Perhaps this was for the best.

As for firmness, well. Let me be clear. There is nothing firm about the lower half of my body. I am blessed/cursed (depending on your cultural preference) with a very large rump, and frankly, have more than my fair share of wobbly bits around the middle. Yes ladies, my name is Luke Stephens and I too have cellulite. I like my Wine Gums and Curly Wurly’s too much. Did this make a difference to that? Well who knows? I’m not likely to get up in a pair of speedos anytime soon, much less a bikini so it really isn’t important to me so much that I get rid of it.

It did however feel rather nice, and the skin on my tummy and sides had a bit more snap to it. My backside, however, is beyond help. And If I was flexible enough to reach round to see it in the mirror, I probably wouldn’t need this cream in the first place.

And frankly, with that amount of overstimulation on that part of my body in the mornings, who cares?

My advice? Enjoy it!  RRP £18 From Boots.

Laurin says:

At the point on the Venn diagram where feminism and the beauty industry collide, you often hear women utter the phrase “I’m doing this for myself” when attempting to justify a cosmetic enhancement, whether it’s a fondness for £34 lipsticks or an actual boob job. I believe them when they say it, and I’ve been known to utter the words myself. You wouldn’t be reading this blog right now if at least a few of us didn’t take immense pleasure in painting strategic splotches of colour on our faces, even if the only errand on the agenda is a quick nip to Whole Foods for some coconut yogurt.

But listen: I haven’t spent the last fortnight rolling heated serum into my thighs for the pleasure of it. I’m single, I live in freezing London and I do not make my living in the adult film industry, so I’m the only one who regularly sees my thighs. In this case, I’ve been napalming my ass every morning because I’m vain and...actually, that’s it. Vanity is the only rational explanation for why I might be swayed by the promise of another anti-cellulite potion when I know good and well they aren’t permanent fixes.

I love Soap and Glory products. I truly do. The packaging is fun, they’re well-priced, and their “Make Yourself Youthful SPF 50” singlehandedly converted me to the cause of daily sunscreen. And to be fair to them, the packaging of their “Sit Tight Super Intense 4D” serum never once mentions the word cellulite on the packaging. Instead, it promises to “stimulate circulation” and “promote body smoothing”. Except that the only reason my thighs aren’t smooth in the first place is because of ALL THE LUMPY CELLULITE UNDERNEATH.

Since it’s unlikely that you’ll ever see my thighs, and the pictures I do have of them are in a password protected file on my laptop, you’ll just have to take my word that they do look and feel fractionally “smoother”. Maybe. I think. But I won’t be purchasing another tube when mine runs out, for three reasons:

1. THE BURNING, OH GOD, THE BURNING. About three minutes after you apply the quick-drying serum with the nifty rollerball applicator, it starts to heat. This is how you know it is working. It’s supposed to properly activate when you sit down, but it was so uncomfortable the first time I tried it that I spent ten minutes cooling my bum in front of an electric fan before I dared make it any worse. “I’d tell you why I’m late for work, but the resulting mental image has the potential to ruin our professional relationship” is not a sentence I ever care to utter on a Monday morning. Again. I gather that some people quite like the heating sensation, but I am not one of them. And now, my good friend Leo joins us from his caravan in Mantua Outfields to report on what happens when the applicator slips and goes a bit too far up. Leo, over to you:

Thanks, Leo. Don’t forget to swing by the pharmacy on your way back into town.

2. You’re supposed to apply this twice a day. I can just about remember to do it once. Also, see Reason 1.
3. The pseudo-scientific language on the box makes me wonder if an angry Aldous Huxley is actually alive and working in marketing. Pressocapsular Firm-Plus? Puffdrain 82?

If you already exercise, eat well, drink lots of water and still have a few stubborn spots, you might see a bit of difference using this product. Or you might not. I cannot responsibly suggest that you run out and spend £18 on it. But if you are still tempted, I won’t judge you. Just watch where you’re pointing that rollerball.

Soap & Glory™ Sit Tight™ Super-Intense 4-D is £18 and available at Boots

The Fine Print: PR Samples.

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Bare Mineral Marvelous Moxie Lipgloss in Hypnotic

Lipgloss isn't something I associate with Bare Minerals very much.  Lipstick, yes (their Marvelous Moxie range is very well, and aptly named), and of course, there is their iconic range of mineral foundations and powders, but ... lipgloss?

Look at it.  LOOK AT IT!  Oh, those prismatic pigments, this is so pretty!

And with flash, so you can see how the colour changes in different lights:

:sigh: so pretty.  So very, very pretty.

Here's how it swatches in different lights:

Hmn ... lets try again from a different angle:

Okay, once more?

It's definitely more of a layering gloss, this one, I think.  Here it is over Max Factor Lipfinity Just in Love from the other day:

Can you tell the difference from the original below?

So, Hypnotic it may be in the tube, it's rather ... subtle in the flesh.  Lovely to look at, but simply not that exciting to wear, I'm afraid!  It's a nice, non-sticky gloss, however, with a little hint of peppermint flavour,  just a shame it's a bit underwhelming out of the tube.  Some of the other BareMinerals colours are much, much better in the gloss formulation, I'll show you those soon.

Available from Debenhams costing £16.

This post: Bare Mineral Marvelous Moxie Lipgloss in Hypnotic 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

By Terry - Cheek to Cheek: Cherry Cruise and Tint to Lip: Pink Palace

I'm a sucker for a stain.  Well, some stains, anyway - tea, spag bol, toothpaste not so much (I'm a mucky pup) - gimme a cheek or a lip stain, and I'm happy.   Particularly a lip stain.  I love my bright lipsticks, as some of you might have noticed, but it drives me bananas when they don't last.

Enter By Terry, with a couple of stains perfect for the cack-handed muppets amongst us, and I'm happy to report that they're amongst the more affordable products in her range too, which is good news!

First, Cheek to Cheek in Cherry Cruise:

 Such a pretty, bright cherry red!  It comes with an innovative dropper applicator and a pop up lid:

 The formula is bi-phase, one layer is the red pigment (referred to as a syrup in the literature, but it's not as sticky as this might make it sound), and one layer is silver shimmer, you can shake to mix the two, and have a slightly more opaque and definitely more shimmery colour, or you can just leave the shimmer to settle to the bottom of the bottle and use the "syrup" alone.

Best thing about this formula is that it is blendable.  We have all seen cheek stains that stain from the very first instant it comes off the brush - STRIPES! - and have ended up with dolly-cheeks as a result, but with this one, you just drop a drop (two if you're braver than I am), rub it onto the fingers of both hands and blend into your cheeks.  You'll have around a minute to play, and you won't get those little tell-tale circles on your mush.

However, nothing budges this stuff.  It'll look the same when you come to take it off as it did when you first applied it, and that's fabulous. Just make sure you have kind lighting in your bathroom the first time you use it, as it can be easy to overapply when you're still getting used to it.  I warn you!

Now, the Tint to Lip in Pink Palace, in the same two-phase formulation as the Cheek to Cheek above, it's purely for your lips:

Here it is both without the shimmer, and shaken to show the more opaque shimmery formula.  A cooler-leaning raspberry pink, it is unusual for a lipstain in not going completely fuchsia as you might expect on the lips.

It is ... fairly ... long-lasting.  It won't survive a sandwich, but a couple of cups of tea won't scare it completely off.  Personally, I prefer the look of the tint without the shimmer on the lips, I think it looks a bit frosty with the shimmer and that isn't a good look on someone my age, whatever the shade, but the colour, for me is perfect.  One coat is just enough to give my lips a whisper of colour, but you can build up the pigment for a more intense look.

Here you can see the differences between the colours more clearly.  A bright cherry red, and a clear raspberry.  Here's how they apply on the skin:

OBVIOUSLY I've overapplied!  But you can see how the products stay runny when applied to the skin, which is what allows you some blending time.  I wiped half of this off, and blended them out:

Again you can see the (slight) differences between the colours, and the sheen you get from shaking the product up.  However for the cheeks, you really do only need a single drop, I probably applied enough for four cheeks here.  The lips you'll probably need about two dips with the doe-foot sponge, more if you want to layer up.  Both products have the classic By Terry rose scent, but it wears off quickly, and you don't have that nasty chemical after-taste with the lipstain.

Cheek to Cheek costs £29 and Tint to Lip is £22, which, in By Terry terms, is practically pocket change.

The Fine Print: PR Samples.  Pictures for this post were taken with a Nokia Lumia 1020 lent by Microsoft.

This post: By Terry Cheek to Cheek and Tint to Lip 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

Max Factor Lipfinity Revisited

Lipfinity was launched by Max Factor in 2000, but there was always something rather ... nineties about them, if you ask me.  It was the brown-ness.  They were firmly stuck in that rust rut that I always associate with the late 90's, where blush, shadow and lipstick were usually the same terracotta shade.  Get Lippie doesn't really do brown.

Especially not like this:

She's so beautiful.  I'd look like an Oompa Loompa. More so than usual, I mean.

I'd just look like my face was dirty.  Monochrome brown is a great look for some, but ... well, it's not for me.  Brown is what I think of when I think of Lipfinity though, I can't deny it.

But, I was re-introduced to the range recently (hey, only 14 years behind the curve, never say we're not trendsetters here at Lippie Mansions), and I was delighted to notice they had some really lovely BRIGHT colours! Not a brown in sight!

Here we have shades (L-R):

006 - Always Delicate: beige-peach
024 - Stay Cheerful: lovely cool pink
120 - Hot: tomato red
146 - Just Bewitching: creamy coral
335 - Just in Love: raspberry

Yes, yes, I know, beige is a kind of brown, shut up!  There's nothing rusty about these colours though, they're gorgeous.

Hot and Just in Love have a hint of gold and silver shimmer respectively, but the other three are cream shades.  The shimmer is barely (if at all) perceptible on the lips, but it just stops the colours looking too flat in the tube.

Even thought I'm not at my most comfortable in "nude" shades, 006 Always Delicate is wearable for me because it contains a lot of pinkish-peach, and it's good for adding a polished look to a no-makeup face.  I don't look as much like a corpse as usual in this one.

My favourites, as you might have guessed if you're a long time reader, are the red and the deep raspberry pink, and it's always a delight to have a long-wearing non-feathering formula in bright shades.  Application is the normal two-stage slight faff, the slightly dry pigment layer (which works best if you apply two extremely thin coats, rather than one thick one):

335 Just in Love

And then you follow this up with the glossy silicone layer:

335 Just in Love

Colours apply true to tube (this is one very thin layer - it would have been far more intense with two), and will last through tea, coffee, wind, rain, sunshine, and hail.  But not chips.  Never chips. The pigments in Lipfinity are oil-soluble, so chips, lard, cream cakes, mayonnaise etc will all eat through the colour and leave you with the red (pink/peach/coral) ring of doom if you're not careful.  Most cleansing oils and balms will get rid of them at the end of the day, but you might have to scrub a little with your facecloth to get the final stubborn remnants off.  Oh, and invest in a decent lip balm for nighttime, this will show up every fault on your lips, if you've neglected them. If you're a fan of Lipfinity already, then you'll love these colours.  If you're not ... well, there's nothing new here aside from the pigments.

Well played Max Factor!  Nice colours all, and it's great to have long-lasting colours at an affordable price, they cost £10.99 each at Boots, but there are always offers on ... Compare that to one Guerlain Rouge G, Tom Ford or Chantecaille Lip Chic (all in the £30+ bracket) and you have yourself a bargain.

What have you revisited recently?

The Fine Print: PR Samples.  Photos for this post were taken with a Nokia Lumia 1020 lent by Microsoft.  It's a phone, in case you were wondering.  with a bloody good camera.  I'll review it properly one day.  I haven't used my DSLR since it arrived, I'm *that* lazy.

This post: Max Factor Lipfinity Revisited 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

Nail Candy by Donnie & Ginny Greer (and introducing Emily!)

So, I'm always getting asked if people can do guest posts, but when you get waylayed by the birthday girl at her own party, begging to do nails for the blog, you can't really refuse, can you? So, without further ado, I present you the latest addition to the Get Lippie team, the gorgeous, the incomparable, the INCREDIBLY TALL, Emily Maben!

By Emily

I don’t actually remember agreeing to be ‘special nails correspondent’ for Get Lippie, it was my birthday and I’d had a few cocktails, natch. But I was delighted the following morning, with a suitably horrific hangover, to find a message confirming the beginning of my blogging career.

So…I’m Emily, and I’m going to be trying, testing and reviewing (and no doubt spilling all over my sofa and clothes) every nail product I can get my hands on, just for you. I don’t claim to be an expert…I have no training whatsoever, but have amassed a rather large collection of varnishes, tools, books, stickers and embellishments over the last few years and love experimenting with new techniques. Sometimes my attempts look like a hot mess, sometimes they look ace and I spend all day staring at my lovely SHINY nails.

As I MAY have mentioned, it was my birthday recently and my lovely team at work gave me this fabulous book: Nail Candy!

Written by Donnie & Ginny Geer, two sisters who started out as nail bloggers, this kitsch delight contains a wealth of nail art ideas and inspiration, with full instructions and clear images. I’d say some of the techniques are quite advanced, butwith a little bit of experience and the right tools I think everyone will find something to love here. Kitten nails with pointy ears (squeeee!), basic striping, dotting and half-moon techniques, artistic paint splatter effects and Harajuki style 3D cutesiness.

I decided to have a go at something simple and opted for the Watercolour manicure. Following their instructions I used two coats of Barry M Blueberry and let them fully dry, before roughly blobbing other shades of blue on top, with a little bit of silver for good measure. While the blobs are still wet you load of wide brush (I actually used an eye-shadow brush) with acetone and then you sort of smoosh the colours together to give a watery paint effect. Finally apply a top-coat and voila…erm, well a watercolour effect that I can’t work out if I like or not.

With a bit of practice (and perhaps better choice of colours) I think this could look fantastic. Have you tried this technique yet? How did you get on?

Emily. x