Finishing Touches: LipsNspritz of the Week 8th July 2016

It's been a mixed bag, fragrance-wise this week.  It's ostensibly summer, but I can't imagine anything less summery than this dark and dank July we're having so far!  Like with the weather, my perfume choices have been a bit all over the place, too.

Monday brought Tangerine Vert from Miller Harris, a herbal-fresh and zingy citrus that was perfect for blasting away those dreadful Monday morning blues!  This and Hermes Eau d'Orange Vert are very similar mood-lifters for me, both feature, I think, a little hit of mint amongst the orange and other leafy green herbs, and it's bother awakening and refreshing, and just that little bit "different" to a normal lemony-citrus as a result.  I wore Tangerine Vert with Charlotte Tilbury Walk of Shame lipstick, which is a great brown-ish neutral that teeters on that 1990's-style rust, but just avoids it.

Tuesday was Guerlain Shalimar Parfum Initiale, and byTerry Cherry Cherry lipstick (stupid name, great pink).  I was in Paris for the launch of Parfum Initiale a couple of years ago, and so it will always have a special place in my heart - I love the velvety iris and smooth vanilla, it's also surprisingly rich and earthy (almost  ... carroty!) for what was intended at the time to be a teenage girl's way into the world of Shalimar.  It's very different to many ostensibly "teenage" fragrances, not smelling of sugar and fruit, which is why I think it has been discontinued, and why that increasingly Le Petite Cherie Robe Noire, with it's cherries and black tea, and hints of chocolate has taken over as the flagship Guerlain fragrance.  Don't get me wrong, LPCRN is good, but it's just not as interesting (to me) as Parfum Initiale is.  Was.  Whatever.

Wednesday found me in Estee Lauder Alliage.  I love Alliage, as perfect an example of the pinnacle of seventies chypres as can be, it is both bitter green and blinding white, with galbanum and moss and crystalline white flowers, you could wear a tweed jacket and starched white shirt with this and it would be perfect.  I own neither, and wore it with black jersey (my default) and still managed to feel like a grownup all day.  I do think Lauder neglect their amazing back catalogue rather horribly in favour of their newer releases a great deal - does the world really need four versions of Modern Muse above some of the genuine classics in the Lauder catalogue?  Does Kendall Jenner read Descartes in the original? - but the fact that their classics are still available, and largely untouched, and accessibly priced is a great, great thing.  Go try some of them.  Also only of my favourite reasonably priced brands is Pixi, and this lipstick in Raspberry Blush is amazingly good and pretty.

Thursday was Vaara by Penhaligons.  I love Vaara.  It's a fruity-floral, normally a category I eschew, but it is interesting and original, redolent of quinces and a hint of saffron, over a bed of coriander (the seed,  not the leaf) and is beautiful and gorgeous and wonderfully radiant. I love wearing it.  It also has one of the prettiest boxes Penhaligons have ever done.  The lipstick was Givenchy Le Rouge in Carmin Escarpin, which is the lipstick I wore in Paris on my honeymoon, that's how much I love it.

On Friday, I wore Marrakesh Intense by Aesop.  This blend of rose, black pepper and cardomom is both spiky and powdery and wonderfully evocative, it makes me a little woozy in the best possible way when I wear it.  I do have to confess that I have a sneaking preference for the original Marrakesh formula, which punches up both the spiky black pepper, and the plush cardamom over the silky rose, but this is still magnificent, and has better lasting power overall.  The lipstick was Punch Pop by Clinique, which is one of my all-time favourite pink lipsticks.

Saturday was a lazy day in front of the TV, frankly, so I wore things that didn't take much thinking about: Bagatelle de Gabrielle by Omorovicza, which is a gently pretty, rather prim, little white floral based on, but not overwhelmed by orange blossom.  It's rather a "spa" kind of scent.  Pretty, but slightly unmemorable.  I paired it with Aerin Rose lip balm. To be honest, I'm left slightly cold by the whole Aerin Lauder cosmetics "concept" (though, I admit I do love her homewares - someone needs to bring them to the UK STAT!), it's all a bit wishy-washy "makeup for people who don't really like makeup" for me, but the perfumes are nice in a Jo Malone-ish kind-of-a-way, and this particular balm is very much a winner.

What've you been wearing this week?

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#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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#LipsNspritz of the week 11.10.15

Life would be dull indeed without lipstick and perfume, I've made it a mission this last month or so to document my entire lipstick and perfume "wardrobe".  The idea is to wear every perfume and lipstick that I own, and post my thoughts on each on Instagram every day.  I'm trying to do it without repeats, but I've decided to allow myself the occasional one (admittedly an exception made for my "parosmia perfume" Paradox, because there are days still where it's the only thing I can face smelling), but I won't do it too often.  This week I replenished my stores of the original Acqua di Parma, which is one of my all-time favourite fragrances of all-time, and I'm delighted that it's largely untouched by my disability.  It's the smell of a hot and soapy sportsman emerging from the shower, and I've missed it terribly since I ran out last year!  I wore it with Burberry Kisses Sheer balm in Hydrangea, and you'll see more of that later on this week.

Other lipstick and perfume combos of the week after the jump:

Wedding Preparation: Fragrance Profiling with Penhaligons

If you've read my last piece for Basenotes (Buying The Dress Was Easy ...), then you'll know that I'm having a hard time selecting my perfect wedding fragrance.  To that end, MrLippie and I found ourselves at the Covent Garden Penhaligons store a couple of weeks ago, to have a fragrance profile that might help us narrow down our choices.

A service that's open to everyone, for any occasion - and it is free! - I can heartily recommend it.  We were there for a couple of hours (because we were chatting so much, it doesn't have to take so long), and it's thoroughly enjoyable.  You talk for a little while about your choices in fragrance, what the occasion you want your perfume for, and general chit-chat about your life, and a little bit of the history of the brand (which is fascinating, by the way) then you're handed scent strips to sniff of fragrances in their particular families.

What made this super-interesting for us, is that we were encouraged not to sniff each others samples, and we weren't told the names of the fragrances, so that we could avoid any associations we might have already made with the scents we might have already known.  It was, in many ways, a perfect blind sampling of the Penhaligons range, and we found we picked some very interesting, and somewhat random fragrances for ourselves as a result.

Eventually you narrow your choices down to three scents, which are then sprayed onto your arm, and you make your choice once you've had a chance to see how the fragrance settles on your skin.  Only at this point were myself and MrLippie allowed to sniff each others choices!

My final three were Amaranthine, Love Potion No9, and Night Scented Stock, respectively a "corrupted floral", a "spicy floral" and a soliflore.  You'd think I like flowers, or something! MrLippie decided on Opus 1870, Juniper Sling, and Sartorial. I was as amused by MrL's choices almost as much as I was surprised by my own, Opus 1870 is a fizzy (to my nose) and spicy classic, which I'm genuinely hoping he will decide to wear to the ceremony, and Juniper Sling is one of my own favourite scents, which he's always refused to wear previously!  Sartorial, we both liked very much indeed, but it felt just a tiny bit "every day" to wear for a wedding.  It is rather wonderful though.

As for mine, well, LP No9 has an oddly masculine opening, rather fougere-seeming, but dries down on my skin into a slightly spicy floral, which has a tiny hint of shaving foam to it.  Nicer than that sounds, honest! I do like a bit of a masculine-seeming scent.  And, I can't deny it, the fact that the juice matches my dress in colour is amusing the heck out of me.  Night Scented Stock has a very different opening, reminscent of engine oil, and geraniums, but again dries down into something a little more traditionally floral.  Amaranthine (which I'm simply going to have to acquire a bottle of) is beautiful, creamy, lush and spicy, but I felt it was a little too odd for the day itself, though I'd be happy to wear it any other time. 


If you get a chance to go to the Penhaligons store, please do take advantage of the fragrance profiling service, it's a knockout.

So, are any of these the ones we'll pick for the big day?  Who knows?  Hopefully we'll have it figured out by the 16th February ...

 
This post: Wedding Preparation: Fragrance Profiling with Penhaligons originated at: Get Lippie on January 25th 2013 All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Penhaligons Peoneve and Jo Malone Blackberry & Bay Review

Two scents I've been really enjoying wearing lately are the lush floral Peoneve by Penhaligons, and the slightly astringent, green and very intriguing Blackberry & Bay by Jo Malone.

If you've ever buried your face into a bunch of peonies,  you'll know their blousy blossoms have a big juicy, lush and very pink scent.  Almost fruity, in fact, but delightfully fun and refreshing.  I adore this ladylike, but not too old-fashioned fragrance.  I've smelt it on a number of people, and it smells of various ingredients on them, on one of my friends this dries down to a salty vetiver scent, grassy with a hint of the ocean, and on others, there are the creamy musks at the end, but, on me, this stays a bright, fruity, and almost juicy floral scent almost right through the entire wear time.   Perfect for bright summer and spring days.

But, I've noticed that the nights are beginning to draw in now, and Jo Malone's Blackberry and Bay is perfectly timed for the beginning of autumn.  It captures the scent of blackberry leaves in an almost photo-real fashion, and has just a tiny hint of fruit, for which I am thankful.  As it dries down it captures just a hint of the soapy-notes that blackberry leaves can contain, but dries down to an intriguing almost savoury herbal green scent that I adore.  This is a fragrance that every single time I spray it, Mr Lippie asks me what it is, he likes it so much.  I wear so many different fragrances that he never usually bothers asking, but this one has captured his imagination in a very big way.

Both are definitely worth a sniff, but I suspect I'll be buying up all the supplementary products in the Blackberry and Bay range -  I definitely think the candle is one I'll love.  Peoneve is available now, and Blackberry & Bay is available from mid-September.

Penhaligons are great at bringing out little videos about their fragrances and the Monty Python-esque Peoneve one made me laugh, so here it is:

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