Urban Decay Full Spectrum Palette

 Not so much a review this as just a deep sigh of: "IT IS SO PRETTY, I CAN NEVER MAR ITS FABULOUS BEAUTIFULOSITY BY ACTUALLY  USING IT", the Urban Decay Full Spectrum Palette is released online now and costs £43.

Just look at that damned bejewelled cover.  LOOK AT IT.

Oh, and the eyeshadows are quite pretty too:

Arranged beautifully in ombre-d colour groups, there's every shade here for someone who wants a bright, beautiful and clear eyeshadow look.  Peacock eyes?  It's all here, and look at that yellow, amazeballs!  (I'm so channelling 2013, I know).

Cor.  Some seriously beautiful colours there.  I won't ever use it, my days of colourful eyeshadow are long gone (I'm all about the lips now, baby), but it is SO BEAUTIFUL.

What critical faculties?  I'm in lust.

The Fine Print: PR sample.


This post: Urban Decay Full Spectrum Palette 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

Elizabeth Arden Sunkissed Pearls Cream Eye Shadow Stylos

Now, if you had asked me recently what my favourite cream eyeshadow stick/wand/pencil/crayon/whatever was, I'd have answered the Laura Mercier Caviar Sticks I featured yesterday, but I was incredibly pleasantly surprised by these limited edition "stylos" from Elizabeth Arden when they arrived a little while ago.  These babies last.  And last, and last ... it is safe to say I definitely saved the best for last this time.

Available in three shades, (from L-R), Fresh Water Pearl: a gilded pink, Bronzed Pearl: a warm metallic brown, and Blue Pearl, a golden deep turquoise. these are part of the incredibly pretty summer collection from Elizabeth Arden.

Trying - and failing miserably - to capture the lovely holographic effect on the packaging

These are crazy pigmented, but can be blended out easily for a sheerer coverage. and the colours are well chosen for a summer look.  The cool Fresh Water Pearl is my particular favourite, as it blends well with my skintone, but Bronze Pearl works well with it, if you fancy wearing two shades together.  I like Blue Pearl as an eyeliner too.

They are very creamy, and soft, and there is no dragging whatsoever.  The creams spread easily, and blend together beautifully, and look good either together or alone.  The shades are gorgeously multi-dimensional, and not flat at all.

Oh, and when I say these last, these really last - this is a picture taken 24 hours after swatching (which encompassed showers and doing dishes):

They do remove easily with an oil-based cleanser though, don't worry!

The other thing that endears me to these is the sharpeners, not only do they come with the pencil, they're part of it, so you can't lose them, the base of each pencil detaches and forms the sharpener.  Cute and practical!

They're also probably the cheapest pencil I've featured in this series, at £19 each, but they're limited edition, so hurry, hurry, hurry, they're in store now ...


The Fine Print: PR Sample

The Even Finer Print: We're not featuring full fragrance reviews on Get Lippie at the moment owing to illness - please see The Parosmia Diaries for more.


This post: Elizabeth Arden Sunkissed Pearls Cream Eye Shadow Stylos 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

Guerlain Christmas 2014 - L’Ecrin 2 Couleurs in Cygne Noir

And so we reach the Black Swan section of Guerlain Christmas 2014, with the release of the L'Ecrin 2 Couleurs eyeshadow palette in Cygne Noir, and very pretty it is too.  I rarely expect much from the eyeshadow duos from Guerlain (I've never bought one, for example), but this one did make me do a little "ooooh" of joy when I opened it:

Black and purple.  Shimmering black and purple. Actually, it is a slightly glittering black, flecked with gold sparkle, and a softly shimmering deep purple.  This set is perfect for releasing your inner goth.

I was delighted, and surprised at the level of pigmentation in the palette - for some reason, I'd been expecting the shadows to be hard and patchy in application,  I have no idea where I got this idea from, but I was more than happy to be proved wrong!

I'll be taking a closer look at Guerlain's two colour palettes from now on ..,

The Fine Print: Products featured this week have been a mixture of PR samples and private purchases. My bank manager is spending Christmas in the Bahamas.  That's not really a surprise.

This post: Guerlain Christmas 2014 -  L’Ecrin 2 Couleurs in Cygne Noir 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

Guerlain Christmas 2014 - Petrouchka Eye and Blush Palette

Inside the rather forbidding oversize lacquered black packaging of the Petrouchka Eye & Blush Palette sits an incredibly pretty compact:

Fastened with a red silk bow inspired by the ballerinas who in their turn inspired the scent of Coque D'or, the palette is very pretty indeed.  Again following the red and gold theme of this year's Guerlain Christmas even the accessories are themed:

Inside the palette are five shades of metallic eyeshadows and four shades of blush:

Firstly, a closer look at the shadows:

From the top we have a metallic wheat shade, a pale gold, a light copper, a deep bronze, and a chocolate brown. The bottom three are deeply pigmented and buttery soft - almost creamy - when applied, but the two lighter shades have a slightly lighter colour pay-off, and I found them a little scratchier (and patchier) to apply:

That said, if you're a warmer-toned individual than I am, this is an incredibly versatile and beautiful collection of shades.  Just be aware you'll need to work harder with the lighter colours when applying.

Below the eyedshadows, we have four blush shades, two warmer (at the bottom) and two cooler at the top.  They swatch quite well, I've generally found the Guerlain blush formula quite hard and difficult to work with, but these are a nice texture:

Clockwise from top left there's a pale pink, a deep rose, a versatile coral, and a tawny peach,  This should cover quite a variety of skin tones - personally, I tend to tone my blusher along the lines of whatever lipstick I'm wearing that day - cool cheeks with cool lips, and warm cheeks with warm lips, so this is quite versatile.

I like that they've not wasted space in the palette itself for the (pretty but rather useless, as always) tools, every inch of the palette space is used for colour, and the tools are kept in the velvet slipcase, which fits both the palette and the tools very well.

If you're a Guerlain completist (and I freely admit I am), this isn't quite as good as the Liu collection from two years ago (which I'm still kicking myself for not picking up at the time, believe you me), but it's a million times better than the Crazy Paris eye palette of 2013.

Anything caught your eye?

The Fine Print: Products featured this week are a mixture of PR Samples and private purchases.

This post: 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

Sleek MakeUP Vintage Romance Palette & Antique Blush

Well, I said I needed to try some cheaper makeup ... and here I am!  Again, like Illamasqua, Sleek MakeUP isn't a brand I feature often, as a lot of the collections don't "speak" to me.  This one, however, very much did.  I don't get the packaging much, it says "Autumn" rather than "Romance" to me, but the contents are delightful:

 The eyeshadow shades are named after honeymoon destinations, l-r on the top row we have

Pretty in Paris - silver (metallic)
Meet in Madrid - gold (metallic)
Court in Cannes - taupe (shimmer)
Lust in LA - olive (shimmer)
Romance in Rome - blackened navy (shimmer)
Propose in Prague - terracotta (matte)

And on the bottom row (l-r) we have

A Vow in Venice - maroon (shimmer)
Marry in Monte Carlo - fucshia (metallic)
Honeymoon in Hollywood - purple (shimmer)
Bliss in Barcelona - blackened purple (shimmer)
Forever in Florence - matte purple (glitter)
Love in London - matte black (glitter)

I found the shadows to be deeply pigmented, even without primer, but the pans are a little prone to kicking up dust, and they're slightly "glazed" after just a couple of uses, but for the price (£7.99) these are extremely minor quibbles.

I found the two darkest non-glitter shades were the hardest to swatch, both Romance in Rome (blackened navy, and Bliss in Barcelona (blackened purple) have a slight duochrome effect, but neither are as pigmented as any of the other shades, which is a shame, but this still leave ten really rich, pigmented and pretty colours to play with.

I created this look with the palette:

 I used Court in Cannes all over the mobile lid up to the crease, and Lust in LA to line the lower rim.  Then I defined the crease and outer corner with A Vow in Venice, and then patted a little Marry in Monte Carlo onto the lid to brighten.  Then I liked the upper lid with Love in London.  The look lasted all day over primer, and I was really pleased with it.

Antique is a bronzed-rose with a large amount of silvery-blue shimmer in the formula.  It's pretty, but a little too glittery for me for everyday wear.  Be a great shade for evening wear though.  I'm an idiot and forgot to swatch this separately.  For £4.99 though, this is a great bargain, it's very reminiscent of Sin by NARS.  I'll try and swatch them side-by-side next week.


The Sleek MakeUP Vintage Romance palette and Antique blush will be available from September.  You'll be able to find it at Superdrug.

The Fine Print: PR Samples.

This post: Sleek MakeUP Vintage Romance Palette & Antique Blush 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

Illamasqua Reflection Palette and Shard Lipstick

I don't often post about Illamasqua, whilst I love them and a couple of their products are in my daily staples (liquid liner in Abyss, I'm talking about you), sometimes I find them just a little too edgy, not to mention precise for me.  That said, I love the fact that they take risks, and that they feature shades difficult to find elsewhere.  The Sacred Hour collection, however, is designed for the risk-averse, which is far more down my alley.

My picks from the collection (which also encompasses a set of eyelashes, two blushes, two nail polishes, and a new variant of the Skin Base foundation designed purely for the undereye, plus a set of gems) are the Reflection palette and the lipstick in Shard.
 

Reflection is a selection of almost neutral shades, and Shard is a beautiful plum matte lipstain.  Let's take a closer look:

Natural Light

 

With Flash

The eyeshadows have an innovative powder to cream formulation, almost a gel, which makes them bouncy in the pan, and almost entirely gets rid of fallout, which, particularly with the darker shades is a blessing!

Clockwise from top left, the shades are: Precipice (icy pale yellow), Acute (silvered plum-mauve), Graphica (sparkling charcoal), and Dart (medium bronze).  The shadows are perfect for being applied with your fingers - I found that applying them with a natural-hair brush washed the shades out a bit.  Here they are, applied with a brush without primer:

The yellow doesn't show up so well on my skin as my skin is slightly yellow, but I love the mix of colours, and think it'd be easy to get a range of looks from this quad.  My favourites in particular are Acute (surprise!) and Graphica.  I find the shadows to be long-lasting even without a primer.

Here you can see them with the lipstick, which I adore. A long-lasting stain, this is a perfect cool purple (or, as illamasqua describe it, a red-violet).   It can be applied fully as a completely opaque lipcolour, or sheered out as a stain, as below:

Applied fully, you can get a proper "goth" look going on, which I rather like, but your mileage may vary.  I don't find it quite as drying as Illamasqua's other matte lipsticks (ironically), and the stain has excellent lasting properties.

What do you think of my picks of the Sacred Hour collection?

The Fine Print: PR Samples.

This post: Illamasqua Reflection Palette and Shard Lipstick 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

Guerlain Christmas 2013 - Crazy Paris Eye Palette

  
This is my final post about the Guerlain "Crazy Paris" Christmas 2013 collection, On Monday I featured the Sulfurous nail polish and UV topcoat, on Tuesday there was the Provocative Rouge G, yesterday I featured the Crazy Pearls Les Meteorites, and today I'm showing you the Crazy Paris eyeshadow palette, which is on the far right of the picture above.

Guerlain haven't done a stand-alone eye palette in the Christmas collection for about four years now, I think it was a Russian theme last time (I still have it somewhere, must dig it out now I come to think of it), but this is a little different.  In the same sleek black-lacquered case we've seen in the rest of the collection, but this time the neon pink adornment is on the inside, not the outside:

There are four eyeshadow shades, a copper, a pale gold champagne, a shimmering white, and a cool sparkling pink.  Next to that, there are two shadow liners, one a mid-grey and the other a dark charcoal (it's definitely not quite black), the liner shades are "wet & dry" powders, meaning you can wet them down for a more pigmented look.

Here's how they swatch:

As you can see, they're not the most hugely pigmented shadows out there - the coppery shade is by far the softest and easiest to work with.  The pink is the least pigmented, but it is intended purely to add a sparkly finish to the other shadows, using the pink brush supplied in the palette, rather then being a stand-alone shade in its own right.  Guerlain suffer from patchiness when it comes to shadows, and this palette shows off the vagaries of their formulations quite well, some shades are soft and buttery, and some are rather hard and are more difficult to work with as a result.   I think the liners will work well wet, however, and a primer underneath all the shades would really give all the colours a  bit of "oomph".

It's an unusual mix of shades, I think, with the warm richness of the copper contrasting hugely with the rest of the cool shades, but I think I can make it work, I'll show you a FotD with this palette soon.

So, which are my top picks from this collection?  Well, it's the products featured below ...

 What caught your eye?

The Fine Print: PR Samples.
 
This post: Guerlain Christmas 2013 - Crazy Paris Eye Palette 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

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.

This post: Tom Ford Pink Haze Cream Color for Eyes 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