Clinique A Different Nail Enamel in Indie Rock

Nail varnish for sensitive skin?  Really?  Hmn ...  Apparently, in the course of an average day, you'll touch your face many dozens of times, and the chemicals in a "normal" nail varnish can irritate the thin and easily inflamed skin around your eyes, causing reactions and irritation.  I can't say I've ever noticed this, despite having such sensitive skin around my eyes that 95% of eye creams are unbearable on my skin, in all honesty, but Clinique have brought out a range of "gentle" nail varnishes designed without many of the potential irritants of other nail varnishes.

I splashed out recently and bought the shade "Indie Rock", which is a lovely silvered mid-brown, which is going to get a LOT of wear on my toes this summer (my toes have been wearing purple varnish on and off for the last two years now, so it'll make a nice change!), lasting power is very good, and the above picture is just two thin coats.

Whether it's good for sensitive skin or not, I don't know, but I do know good polish, and this is indeed, good polish.

The Fine Print: Purchase.

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Tom Ford Pink Haze Cream Color for Eyes

Last summer, Tom Ford introduced Cream Color for eyes in Platinum and Spice, and Platinum very, very quickly became a staple in the Lippie household, it gets used once a week without fail, as it's simple to use and a very useful staple neutral.

I was excited to see that there were two more cream colors released this summer too, the slightly peach-gold of Escapade, and pinked-bronze (above) of Pink Haze. Pink though?  For eyes?  In a cream?  Madness. Surely the conjunctivitis look isn't in this year?

Luckily, there's enough golden-bronze shimmer in the pink for it to not look like you've been rubbing your eyes for a month.  It's a highly metallic finish though, so you might want to apply with care to avoid it looking like you've got greasy eyelids.

It looks slightly different depending on the angle you see it from, it can look coppery, or more pink, depending, but it's not got enough red in the base to look like you have an infection, don't worry!   I find the wear isn't quite as good this year as it was in last year's formulae, as it does tend to crease more easily - after about six or seven hours or so, you might want to smudge the shadow back into place, but the creasing is on the minimal side, if you're less of a shadow perfectionist than I am, you might not be so bothered.

I wore this in a recent eye of the day post, with a lick of plum liner from Clinique, and here's how it looked:

Subtle but brightening, and (I thought) rather pretty.  Think it'll look good with a tan too - roll on November!

The Cream Color for eyes are a limited edition product, available from Selfridges now for £28.

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YSL Babydoll Collection - Lips, Nails and Mascara

I have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting for this collection to launch!  I first saw it way back in February, and I've used the mascara non-stop since ...  A mini-collection, consisting of glossy lip stain, mascara, nail varnish, and several eyeliner shades, I had to pick up the lip stain and nail varnish as soon as it launched last week, and I also picked up a replacement mascara as I've used my sample up entirely in the few months since the press launch!

I've had a fairly disappointing experience with the Rouge Pur Couture Vernis A Levre (or glossy lip stain) previously, but I HAD to have this one, a cool raspberry, this shade is completely up my alley.

You can see the slightly blue undertones around the edges there.  When the gloss is in place, it's a rather hot pink shade, but very rich.  Unlike my previous GLS-experience, this one actually does leave a stain behind:

This can actually last a day or so after application, I've noticed.    Here's how it looks after approximately five hours wear which involved cocktails, and tiny sandwiches:

It does have a tendency to feather a little after a few hours, I've noticed, which is annoying, but it is a super-lovely shade ...

I do love YSL mascara's, but one of my main bug-bears with them is that they dry out too quickly.  I had to stop using Faux Cils as I was finding a tube only lasted about a month or so.  However, the Babydoll mascara formula is a massive improvement over that, and my initial tube lasted three months before I noticed it was clogging slightly.  I like the compact, short-bristled brush, and the very black formula.  Here's how it looks on the lashes:

Yes, my eyes ARE different colours, thanks

(YSL Babydoll on the left, bare lashes on the right - uncurled in both cases)

You can see it has a significant lengthening and curling effect, and I love it for not being cloggy, even after applying a couple of coats.  I have noticed (with the second tube, but not the first for some reason), that you can get smudges after a long while in wear, which is slightly annoying, but it's not the end of the world.

And finally:

Whilst it's not a particularly unique shade, I do have to say that I really like the new YSL brushes, which are wide enough almost to cover my entire (tiny) nail in one stroke.

Anything caught your eye recently?

The Fine Print: Mascara was initially a press sample, but all products featured in this article were purchased myself.
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Tom Ford Skin Illuminator - Fire Lust

Tom Ford's summer offering this year is pale, pretty and rather on the sheer side.  I've a selection of the products to show you, and I'm starting with the Fire Lust Illuminator, which is a lovely golden apricot shade, which you can use either as a highlighter or mix with your foundations for a sheer-er dewy finish.

A little of this goes quite a long way, it has good slip, and is a beautiful shade.

It's full of micronised pearl pigments, and is rather pale when blended

As you can probably tell here.  I blended half of the swatch out, and you can see the effect on the skin is rather ... subtle.  As a highlighter, on my skintone, it's not all that effective, but I think on either a much paler, or even much darker skin, the effect would be more pronounced.

That said, this does mix beautifully with foundation.  I've mixed this with Estee Lauder Double Wear, and Double Wear light, and the mix gives it a gorgeous dewy finish, but still with a nice amount of coverage, I really like it.

Tom Ford Skin Illuminator in Fire Lust is a limited edition product, and is on sale at Selfridges now for £46.

More from this collection coming up later this week.

The Fine Print: PR Sample

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A(nother) Week in Eyeshadow

Another week, another week of eyeshadow ...

Top row: L-R
NARS Lhasa with Tom Ford Plum Absolute liner
Tom Ford Platinum Cream Eyeshadow with Estee Lauder Extreme Emerald shadow as a liner
NARS Grand Palais with Clinique grey Quickliner

Bottom Row L-R
Tom Ford Pink Haze Cream Eyeshadow (full review later this week) with Clinique Intense Plum Quickliner
Shiseido RD711 Palette with Clinique Intense Chocolate Quickliner
Bourjois Shadow No74 with Estee Lauder liquid liner from the Bronze Goddess collection

All mascara is YSL Babydoll, look out for the review of this later this week ...

How's your week in eyeshadow been?

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The Beauty Bible are looking for testers!

God, I love Beauty Bible, and I've been a member of a number of their testing panels for about ten years now.

Currently they're looking to recruit ladies over 35 for their latest version of the Natural Beauty Bible (the last one of which has a couple of my - anonymous - quotes in!), all you have to do is click here to apply to take part: http://beautybible.com/email-us/id-like-to-be-a-tester/ they'll be putting their panels together soon.

Bear in mind: it costs £30 to take part (only payable if you're selected for a panel - it's free to apply), but you do get ten products to trial, and they guarantee that the value of your parcel will be at least £100.  And you might get your comments in the book too!  Through testing over the years, I've discovered amazing products from the likes of Paul Mitchell, Bobbi Brown, Kanebo, Sensai and other brands that I wouldn't have heard of if I hadn't been a Beauty Bible tester - they're partly responsible for me being a beauty blogger in the first place!

I'll not mention the moisturiser that was like trying to rub cheese into my face, however ...

Whoops

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Bliss Fuzz Off Facial Hair Remover Review

Now, I don't have a moustache, but, if I did, I like to think I'd rock it a bit like this:

Sadly, as the moustache I most definitely do NOT have is a little wispy thing, I can't rock it with this kind of panache on a daily basis, so I generally leave it be.  Waxing your face is painful and can leave you with bruises if you do it wrong (allegedly - this cack-handed muppet doesn't wax anything without several glasses of wine and a panadol beforehand, so it might not, now I come to think of it, be the wax's fault ...) and bleaching is time-consuming, smelly and fraught with the dangers of mixing the chemicals yourself (is it just me, or is it simply impossible to know if you have twice as much cream as powder with that stupid little spatula you get in the pack?), so I don't bother with my facial topiary, frankly.  Life is too short for moustache-care, and fake-tanning if you ask me.

However, being a beauty blogger, particularly a beauty blogger interested in lipstick, like what I am, means you get to see your face in  EXTREME CLOSE UP very often.  You know the kind of close up where a tiny line becomes the Grand Canyon, and your pores look like craters of the moon?  Like the strongest magnifying mirror you can find, times a bajillion? Well, you don't really want to know what lip-hair looks like under those conditions, frankly ...

So, when Bliss unexpectedly sent me a tube of Fuzz Off, I was slightly bemused.  As I don't have a moustache, and bearing in mind that the aforementioned moustache I do not have is left in a state of benign neglect for approximately 50 weeks of the year, I wondered if I'd ever use it.  Then I was cropping some lipstick swatch pictures, and realised that there's no time like the present, and decided to give it a go.

It promises to work in three minutes, and to smell nice, which is about all you can ask for, really.  Oh, no chemical burns would be good too, and Fuzz Off delivers on all three counts.  It's quick, easy to use (you basically spread it on the affected area with the nifty spatula built into the tube, then remove it three minutes later with the other side of the spatula), and doesn't make you wonder who's been at the rotten eggs whilst you're about it.

However, it's £12 for a tiny 15ml tube.  I'm not sure how long it would last (although, I will say you don't need a huge amount, and, as you're getting rid of hair from the root, I don't think you'd need to use it all that often, to be honest), but that seems a bit pricey to me.  That said though, if I DID have a moustache (which I don't, remember?), then I would buy it, as the design of the tube is excellent and easy enough for even the most cack-handed of muppets to use, and it works very, very quickly.

I wouldn't, however, recommend it for extremely sensitive skins, as there's a chance of irritation, I did find my skin was a little pink after using, but this didn't last long, and hey! No moustache!


The Fine Print: PR Sample.

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Pink Grapefruit Sugar Cookie Recipe

I don't bake very often, but I've been sitting on this recipe for a while now, and today I just had to get my bake on! I got inundated with requests for the recipe when I posted the pics on Instagram, so I thought the best way to get the recipe out was a blog post.  Normal makeup-based service will resume soon, I promise...

Ingredients:

300 grams granulated sugar
114 grams butter
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons pink grapefruit juice
1 tablespoon pink grapefruit zest
256 grams plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
half teaspoon ground cinnamon
quarter teaspoon ground ginger
Pinch of salt

Sugar for dusting

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, 180 celsius, or gas mark 4

Cream the butter and the sugar together, then add the egg, vanilla, juice and zest, and mix thoroughly.

Sift together the flour, spices, baking powder and salt, then mix into the wet ingredients, and mix till you have a soft, sticky dough.

Place tablespoon sized balls of dough onto a lined baking sheet, approximately two inches apart (cookies will spread a great deal), and sprinkle the tops with a little sugar, then bake for approximately 10-12 minutes, removing from the oven once slightly golden, and the edges have set.

Cool on a rack. Makes about 24 cookies.

You get a very crisp cookie with a slightly soft centre, and just a hint of zingy grapefruit.   Enjoy!

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A Week in Eyeshadow ...

In a change from my normal "Week in Lipstick" posts, I thought a week in eyeshadow might be in order.

Man, I need to step away from the taupe a bit, eh?  All mascara is YSL Babydoll (full review coming soon) and most eyeliner is Tom Ford Noir Absolu except at bottom right, where it's Illamasqua Havoc...

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Lippie's Lust List #5 - Urban Decay Eyeliner Vault

Released on May 2nd, this set of 40 of Urban Decay's eyeliners is stunningly beautiful.  I want it very much.

However, it's £240 so it can sod off.


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Jo Malone London Osmanthus Blossom

The latest beautifully packaged fragrance from Jo Malone London is Osmanthus Blossom.  A delicate, fresh floral, this is gorgeously spring-like, with hints of apricot and cashmere wood in the base.

The bottle is etched, and comes with a coloured back panel too:

The scent is lovely and light, very simple and crisp, gently floral without being too granny-like.  It's easy to wear, and perfectly suitable for spring.  I've been wearing it layered over Jo Malone London Blackberry and Bay - which I always think of as a very autumn-like scent, and the pairing works really well.  The Osmanthus softens out the rather masculine bay, and the soapy-blackberry note sweeten up the floral tendencies of the Osmanthus.

In what is increasingly looking like an over-saturation of Jo Malone launches this year (I ignored the "English Desserts" collection of a month or two ago, as they were all, frankly, disgustingly over-sweet and very definitely aimed at a different market to myself) this is a fragrance I'm surprised to find myself writing about to be honest, but it's very definitely a "nice" scent, and will make a wonderful gift thanks to the fabulous packaging.

Osmanthus Blossom will cost £38 for 30ml, or £78 for 100ml when it's released in May.

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Becca Sunchaser Ultimate Eye Colour Quad

Something a little less bright, but no less pretty, on the blog today.  The summer palette from Becca is the Sunchaser set this year, and it's a lovely one.

So many summer collections are either too orange or contain a bright that is less than useful, so for us who prefer to stay pale year-round (you will never see me write about a home fake-tanning product on here), a lot of summer collections are pretty much unwearable.  This was a really lovely surprise when it arrived, for it's a beautiful selection of nude shades, which has very quickly gained a place in my heart

The four shades are: (clockwise from top) Matte Buff, Softly Metallic Peach, Metallic Tweed and Metallic Sienna.  I wouldn't really describe any of these shades as a "metallic", they're soft shimmers, and I can't really tell the difference between the "soft metallic" and just plain "metallic" either.

This, for me, is an almost perfect "nude" eyeshadow palette - I don't get along with the Urban Decay Naked palette too well - I've been away a couple of times this month, and this palette has come away with me on each trip, as you can create a "no-makeup" look quite easily, but by changing the amount of Tweed and Buff that you use (Tweed as a liner, and Buff in the contour), you can make a softly smokey eye very easily too.

Swatches don't show much (they've been done with a finger over bare skin) but that's kind of why I like it, it's the perfect summer collection for the pale as the dead, like what I am.

The Sunchaser Quad will be available from SpaceNK soon for £32.

The Fine Print: PR Sample

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