#LipsNspritz 25.10.15

 

I love instagram at the moment, and one of my favourite things I do on there is cataloguing my daily perfume and lipstick choices via the hashtag #LipsNspritz. Lipstick and perfume are really the final finishing touches to any outfit, and, whilst no one needs to know how boring my eyemakeup and dress-choices are every day (cardigans ROOL!), perfume and lipstick do add life and colour to this accountants day, every day.

Occasionally you need a Tom Ford day, and I'm entranced by the Sahara Noir bottle.  It's just so blingy and OTT.  But the fragrance inside is a good one, reminding me heavily of Serge Luten's Ambre Sultan, but drier and with a touch less spice.  I paired it with Tom Ford Cherry Lush, which is a wonderful cheerful cherry red. Far more after the jump...

 

 Cartier La Panthere is another stunning bottle, carved from the inside into an intaglio of a panther head, and the contents are sophisticated and really interesting.  Both waxy and leathery, and heavily floral with hints of gardenia once it dries down, it starts with muted fruit.  It's softer than this makes it sound, and I really like it.  I paired it with No7 lipstick in Soft Ruby, another of my pinky-red favourites.  This perfume really calls for a punchy shade of lip!

 Jo Malone London Wood Sage and Sea Salt.  I don't really know what to say about this one, as it was at the launch of this fragrance where I discovered that I had lost my sense of smell completely.  Being able to smell it now is a mixed blessing. It's a sea-salty-herbal fresh fragrance, with a hint of something else beneath that my damaged nose now can't put a name to.  I'm annoyed that I missed such an interesting fragrance from Jo Malone London!  I paired it with Tom Ford Scarlet Rouge, a bright and very, very warm red.

At a launch for a book written by a friend of mine (more about this later this week), I wore a fragrance I'd had a (tiny) hand in creating myself: Paradox by 4160 Tuesdays.  It's bright with violets and lemons, dark and earthy with orris and grounded by woods and musk.  I truly love it, and can't believe that something so lovely and unexpected came out of such a dark and horrible time of my life.  It's the only fragrance I'll be repeating whilst #LipsNspritz is ongoing, because sometimes, familiarity is what you need.  I paired it with the violet-plum of Becca Matte lipstick in Antoinette, because I'm good like that.

And finally this week, Lily and Spice by Penhaligons.  I'm so annoyed that they discontinued this, I can't even begin to tell you, as it's a stone-cold classic fragrance. An almost photo-realistic lily fragrance over a bed of warm and creamy spice (saffron and clove, apparently), it's a beautiful and glorious perfume for a chilly autumn day.  Such a shame it's impossible to get hold of now.  I was wearing a dress on Friday, and fancied a more ladylike lipstick than usual then, so went with Clarins Joli Rouge in Pink Berry, a creamy pink that doesn't scream LIPSTICK when you're wearing it.

What have you been wearing this week? 

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Skincare of the Week 25/10/15

 It has been a long and busy week here at Get Lippie, and my lifestyle has shown a bit in my skincare choices, I've swapped to a more hydrating routine, and I've slipped a few new products in too.  I'll be concentrating on some night-time routines this week.  More after the jump.

Mary Kay Giveaway Winner!

Massive congratulations to Kerry Locke who won the Mary Kay Giveaway this weekend.  Kerry, I'll have your parcel in the post later this week, look forward to hearing how you get on with everything!

Such a great response to the competition, thank you to everyone who took part!
 

 The Fine Print: PR Sample


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Perfumer H by Lyn Harris

I spent a lovely afternoon with Lyn Harris at her new venture, Perfumer H, last week. In the stripped-back luxury of her Marylebone studio, we chatted parosmia, hyperosmia, the hard work that goes into making a life's work look so simple, so effortless and so elegant, and, of course, we chatted perfume.

How to deal with annoyingly frizzy and wavy hair

 My hair is one of the banes of my existence. It's wavy, it's frizzy, and it's a bit curly.  This was it a few years ago when I attempted a quick blow dry, something I've not bothered even trying to do since.  It's big, my hair, and not in a good way, it simply wants to fill the room with itself, and choke anyone who gets in its way.  It hates you, my hair, but it hates me even more.

 A couple of years ago, I went the "No-Poo" way, and that was a complete disaster, my hair was lank and horrific, and never ever felt clean.  Then I tried using hair gel as a "cast" to create curls, and that was better, but my hair was still prone to frizz as it dried - I prefer air-drying to blow-drying, always, but the results can be unpredictable. Basically, with my hair, you simply never know what you're going to get on a day by day basis.  But now I think I've cracked it.

The difference is "plopping". Something you've probably heard of, and the idea is - basically - to tip your head over, as if you were about to scrunch-dry your hair with a diffuser, and then just lower your curls onto an absorbent material and wrap them up.  Where it differs from a normal turban-style wrap with a towel is that you don't use a terry towel (they remove too much moisture), and you don't stretch out your hair into the twists of whatever material you're wrapping your hair up in.

So, I bought myself a curl-towel from Boucleme, and have been trying it for myself.  I also treated myself to some of their curl defining gel (you need something that sets hard for this, otherwise it won't give enough hold to your curls as they dry).  I washed with Rahua shampoo and used their hair mask (but to be honest, you can use any good and moisturising shampoo and conditioner combo that you wish, these just happen to be my hair trials of the moment).

So, how do you plop? Here's my (simple) step-by-step guide:

Wash and condition your hair as normal, using a good, moisturising conditioner.
Squeeze out as much water from your hair as you can with your hands, trying not to agitate it too much.
Apply your curl-forming product whilst your hair is still sopping wet (and be quite generous with it) all over, taking care to scrunch a bit extra into the ends to help start the curl-forming process
Have your curl towel (you can use a t-shirt if you don't have a special curl towel, but not a normal terry-towel) onto a flat surface.
Tip your head forwards, and gather your hair together as if you were going to put it up into a high-ponytail onto the crown of your head
Gently lower your curls into the middle of the material you put onto the flat surface, until your head touches the towel.
Bring the front and back (long edges) of your towel together onto both your forehead and nape of neck, leaving two long "wings" at the sides, where your ears are
Twist those wings until the fabric gathers over your ears, then tie them up at the back of your neck. 
Look at yourself in the mirror, marvelling at how stupid you now look.

By the way, there should be no hair in the wings of your material, it should all have been in the centre, so when you stand up, your hair is all now on the top of your head.

DO NOT RUB YOUR HAIR AT ANY STAGE.

And voila, that's IT! Just leave the towel on until your hair is no longer sopping wet, and remove it to let your hair air-dry (you'll have to arrange your curls slightly to ensure they fall properly) or diffuse your hair through the towel until there's only a very little moisture left.  If your hair looks like it will be a bit fluffy once you've taken the towel off, just add a little more gel.

Once your hair is completely dry - the gel will be crunchy at this point, btw, but it's necessary! -  scrunch the curls gently in your hands.  The gel will disappear, leaving you with soft, FRIZZ FREE curls in their natural curl formation.

Makeup free, aside from mascara.  It's my blog and I'll leave off the makeup if I want to ;)

This was how mine looked after 30 minutes or so "plopping" in the Boucleme towel, then I left it to dry naturally for a couple of hours. I gently scrunched it to break the gel "casts" my curls had dried into, and this was the result!  My hair is soft, bouncy and shiny, I really like it!  I had no idea I could get those beachy curls without heat, or any real effort at all, so it was an added bonus.

The Boucleme towel has made all the difference for me, it's basically cotton and bamboo with a hint of elastane and it works really well.  For the price of £19 though, I would have expected hemmed edges, rather than the rough scissor marks that are on mine, as £19 is quite expensive for what is, essentially, a big rectangle of stretchy t-shirt fabric.  The curl defining gel by Boucleme though, I can't really fault. It smells fresh and clean, dries hard, creates fab curls and disappears completely without a trace once you scrunch it out.  At £15 for 300ml, it's a big (and not cheap) bottle, but as it's designed to be used in a generous application, so I'm not sure how long it will last.  I'll definitely be re-purchasing though, regardless. I used to use Deva-Curl which you can only source from Amazon, and it's breath-takingly expensive for hair gel, as they import it from the US.  The Boucleme is just as good, if you ask me, and much easier to find.

So, please share your curly hair tips with me in the comments, I'll be ever so grateful!

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Skincare of the Week: 17.10.2015

 

I've been beauty blogging a long time, well over six years now, and in that time my interests have changed. From basically wanting to catalogue my lipstick collection (where the name came from), to learning to love (and grow) my fingernails, then COLOURS, COLOURS, COLOURS, and finally to where I am now, which is obsessed with skincare.  Mostly I'm too lazy to spend hours every day applying my face - though I do wear a different lipstick every day still - so my skin needs to be tip-top at all times, hence the obsession.

My skin is combination-oily, prone to redness and sensitivity, and it is full of pores.  I suffered horrendously from adult on-set acne in my late twenties too - which I mainly cured through getting my skincare right. I'm in the "mature" skin category these days, but a lot of anti-ageing creams are too heavy for my oiliness, so I'm constantly on a quest to deal with my redness rather than my wrinkles (of which at the moment I have thankfully few, but the ones I do have grow slightly more entrenched every day - I'm learning to love them).  These Skincare of the Week posts are my way of diarising what I'm trialling, what I really love, what works - and if you see it disappear after just one use or two - what doesn't work at all.  So read on to find out what's been on my ugly mush this week.

Mary Kay Autumn Collection Competition

I love autumn, don't you? And I love autumn because makeup-wise it means we move away from the (unwearable to me) pastels of spring, and the bronzers of summer into lovely berry shades and gorgeous sludgey shades of makeup, which I always find so comforting.  This coupled with snuggly blankets on the sofa, long evenings drinking red wine, and the prospect of Christmas on the horizon thrills my cynical little heart.

Other things thrill me too. I went to tea with the Mary Kay company recently, and was amazed to discover that they're one of the best-selling makeup companies in the whole world, and they're one of the top ten skincare sellers in the world too!  It's criminal that we barely know they exist here in the UK - my US readers are always emailing me asking what I think of the products, and until recently, I didn't even know you could get them here!  Well, you can, and in the new year, they're going to be launching a fab new way of getting hold of their products, which I'll tell you all about nearer the time.

Meanwhile, in order to celebrate autumn, and the soon-to-be increased visibility of Mary Kay here in the UK, I'm offering one lucky reader the chance to win the entire autumn collection of Mary Kay products that you see pictured here, which includes four nail polishes, three lipsticks, one eyeshadow quad (and a palette to put it in), three CityScape perfumed products (a shower gel, a body oil and matching perfume) plus their brand new exfoliating kit which will retail for £50 once it's on sale later this month. All in all the prize bag is worth almost £200!

To enter, just follow the guidelines below, and bear in mind, I will be checking the entrants carefully!  Sadly, because the prize contains nail varnish, this competition will be open to entrants from the UK only.  Sorry about that!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


The Fine Print: PR Samples


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