And now for something entirely different ...

I have some male readers, it appears.  Hello boys!

And Neville ;)

Here, for your gentlemanly delight and delectation, is a makeover featuring a gent man.  Boys can wear make up too, I'm currently trying to convince MrLippie to try guyliner, with no success, alas.

Anyway, meet "M":

He's not bad, but look at that wistful look on his face.  He knows what he's missing: makeup. Yes, makeup. You can see it in his eyes, this guy needs  ....

A couple of passes with the blusher brush, some eyeshadow, and a touch of eyeliner.  Oh yes.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Organic Wednesday - John Masters Organics

Today I'm going to review two John Masters products: Sea Mist Sea Salt Spray with Lavender and John Masters Organics Hibiscus & Honey Hair Reconstructor

The Background:

John Masters is a NY hair stylist, famous for his colouring abilities and commitment to natural products. He's been experimenting with organic products for nearly 20 years, and is pioneering "clean air" salons, meaning that his salons only offer herbal and ammonia-free treatments, thereby avoiding those terrible chemical smells.

The Blurb

All John Masters Organics products must meet the following guidelines:

No SLS, parabens, No GMO's, no petrochemicals, no animal testing, no artificial colour, fragrances or fillers, all plant extracts and oils must be organic, fairtrade, proven to be beneficial, and  packaging is to be biodegradeable.

All of which is pretty impressive, no?  Very admirable but by gosh, it makes the JMO experience a pretty expensive one ...


Review 1 - Sea Mist Sea Salt Spray with Lavender


The product says:
"Spray on and get that extra body and wave that you love at the ocean.  Essential oil of lavender helps protect the hair from natural drying effects of sea salt. Spray desired amount on wet or dry hair.  Style as desired".

Lippie says:
I found that a bit vague (and there's at least one too many "desired"s there, let's face it). What is the "desired" amount? I realise everyone's hair is different, but the first time you use a product, it's at least slightly helpful for a product to make some suggestions as to how to use the product properly.

Anyhoo, I spritzed my hair liberally (I can do vague too) and left my hair to air dry.  I do like how my hair looks at the beach, that kind of wavy and slightly matte texture, so I was really looking forward to using this.  However, I'd overlooked the word BODY in the blurb.  Those of you who read my Cloud Nine review may already have figured out how this review is going to end ...

Oh man.  My hair already expands to fill any available space at any opportunity unless it's regularly beaten into submission styled with straighteners, so using this product was a massive - and I mean that literally - mistake.  The bouffant candyfloss confection I ended up with would have made Barbara Cartlands heart skip a beat.  I got complaints from the neighbours about blocking out the sunshine.  On the plus side, I didn't need a crash helmet for a few days, so it wasn't all bad.


Would I buy it again?  Heck no!  Smells lovely, but it's hellishly expensive for what is basically a bottle of salty water with some essential oil in it (mine cost £16 from Debenhams).  Might work wonderfully on someone with finer hair than mine though, and it would be great for someone with oily hair to help keep that under control, but for me, it's a big fat zero.

Review 2 - Honey and Hibiscus Hair Reconstructor.

The product says:
"A super-intense conditioning treatment that helps revitalise and restore hair.  Using the same essential fatty acids found naturally in younger hair, it's the perfect conditioner for the very dry or damaged hair.  May be used after each shampoo, or as a weekly treatment as needed.  Apply to wet hair.  Leave in 2-4 minutes (or longer). Rinse"


Lippie says:
This is a gloriously-smelling product that's just a delight to use.  I was convinced this was going to be rubbish, but I've used this three or four times since I bought it and it leaves my hair shiny, sleek and lovely.  I hesitate to say it's worth every penny of the £28 I paid for it, but it is a very good product indeed.  I'd recommend it for anyone with coloured, dry or damaged hair.

RIP GHD? or How I Found Cloud Nine Straighteners...

*Warning, this post contains images that some people may find hilarious disturbing.

You do have to be careful what you say in public these days.  A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned on Twitter that you'd have to prise my GHD's from my cold, dead hands before I could be parted from them, and the next thing you know, Cloud Nine are offering to help me change my mind!  From the people who invented the original GHD Straightener, Cloud Nine claim that their irons can get a beautiful natural finish on your style at lower temperatures than other straighteners, so avoiding heat damage on your hair. 

Now, I don't just have hair.  I have BIG hair.  I have a LOT of hair.  I have hair that is not only wavy, but wavy, fuzzy and wonky, in that one side is curlier than the other.  My hair hasn't been seen in it's natural state in many years, and all due to the invention of GHDs.  A lot of my friends don't even know I have curly hair! I've tried many brands of straightener over the years, and the GHDs are the only ones that have been able to cope with the beast my hair so far.  It was with this knowledge in mind that I accepted Cloud Nine's offer, knowing full well what the result was going to be.

Boy, was I wrong.

A couple of days ago, a (beautifully packaged) pair of straighteners arrived at Lippie HQ, and, not being into delayed gratification, the first thing I did when I got home from work was to start beating my hair into submission styling my hair with them.  They don't, in all honesty, look that different to GHD's, but they are lighter, and I love the nifty (heatproof) cover that slips over the plates when you're done with them to keep them closed, and stop them burning your surfaces.

Here was the challenge:

This is my hair in it's natural state, after a backbreaking attempt to blowdry it straight - and after using straightening shampoo, conditioner, serum and balm. Bouff!

First impressions were good, the plates really do glide over the hair in a silky fashion, so much smoother than the GHDs I was amazed. Plus, the tips don't get as hot as my GHD's do, both these things making them a lot easier to use.  The lighteness of them is also a bonus in this regard, as I have a lot of hair, so straightening with my GHD's usually takes around 20 minutes minimum, and tend to get sore arms from it all.

After following the enclosed instructions for smoothing out a blowdry, I set to work, and this was the final result:

Still a fair bit of volume there, which is exactly what I wanted! I used the straighteners on 150 degrees - a lower temperature than I've ever used before - and  was delighted with the results.  I was even more delighted with the results when I checked my watch.  From start to finish, the whole thing had taken twelve minutes!  Nearly half the time of my GHDs! I was, I have to say, flabbergasted.  Very little gasts my flabber these days, but these babies managed it.

Cloud Nine say that their straighteners contain a "secret ingredient" to make your hair supershiny when you use them, I have no idea what it is - they've refused to tell me! - but lookit this shine:

Just glorious. I found them a delight to use, they turned a hair chore I hate into something approching pleasurable, and I loved the results. I'm going to try making waves with them later on in the week, and I'll show you the results then.  Go track down a pair, you'll love them too.  In the meantime, do you know anyone who wants a pair of GHDs?  Cheap?

Makeover: Sarah C

Something a little different this week.  Meet Sarah:

Today we're replicating a makeup we designed for Sarah a couple of months ago for a fancy dress party, and my inspiration for the look was Theda Bara. As always, we start with the base:

We've used a mixture of foundations to match Sarah's skin tone, then powdered it down with a smattering of Benefit Bluffdust.  Then it was onto the eyes, and we decided to use MAC Paint in Artifact, which is a lovely burgundy shade:

I applied this in an almond shape on the eyelid, then drew out the outer edges into a pointed shape.  After that, I added lashings of MAC Feline eyeliner to make it even darker:

 

After that, of course, time for mascara:

And then lips, we needed something dark, but still flattering, so we chose Gash by Urban Decay, as it's a really good dark red.  Sarah has lovely shaped lips for the bee-stung look, so I just exaggerated her cupid's bow a little, and drew the colour slightly inside her natural lipshape. There was no need for blush with this look:

And here's how the whole thing looked when we put it together:

I love how this looks, dramatic, different, yet still wearable for a night-time special event.

Here's the before'n'after:

 

Be Stila My Beating Heart ...

I believe Stila is exiting as a beauty brand from the UK, I'm not sure I'm surprised at this news, I've always liked the looks of their products, but have never really been grabbed enough by them to make them a regular purchase.  This wasn't helped by the discovery that I'm allergic to their lipglosses, which really are their star product. But Brandalley had a sale of Stila products recently, and the prices were waaaaay too good to resist, so caved in and bought their Marrakesh eye palette.

Look how pretty these colours are:

Pictures with flash and without

Two lovely pinks, a gold and a rich brown. Brandalley's shipping times can be a bit slow, so by the time they arrived, I'd been waiting for several weeks, and I was desperate to try them.  But ... look at the swatch:

All shades were swatched once with a humongous amount of shadow on the applicator. Hmn, I thought,  not very pigmented, and exceptionally sparkly.  So I set to work creating an FOTD from them:

I'm wearing four different shades of eyeshadow in this picture, which is not something I do often, but I was trying to build up something besides sparkle on my eye. The gold is in the inner corner, the pinks are over the lid, and the brown in the crease and as an eyeliner.  This is also applied over a primer, and with a not particularly light hand.

Very disappointed, both with the pigmentation, and the sparkliness that verges on glittery, I couldn't build up any depth of colour no matter how much I applied, and when some of the powder got into my eye (not something that bothers me too much ordinarily) my eyes were stinging for hours.

Sorry, Stila. I wanted to love you, I really did.

Scents of Winter

I don't know about you, but I spent the summer drenched in sunshine! Not literally, but I did wear a lot of  Clarins Sunshine fragrance.  When I first smelled it, I had an instant sense-memory of my first ever foreign holiday, it was so redolent of Ambre Solaire, the beach, and bubblegum, that I was instantly ten years old again, right there on the shop floor. For me, its instant summer in a bottle, no matter what the weather!

Sadly, I can't keep deluding myself that it's not winter any more, and the changing season seems to call for deeper and darker scents.  My usual winter perfume of choice is Aromatics Elixir by Clinique, I love the depth and unusualness of it, and the fact that it doesn't simply smell of fruit and/or ozone like so many modern perfumes.

This year however, instead of going back to an old faithful, I wanted to try something different.  I've been wearing a lot of Kesu by Tsi-La recently, it's a lovely spicy blend of woods and incense, and  it smells like a sexy church according to those I know who've smelled it on me.  But much as I love Kesu, I think I'm going to be alternating it with Jo Malone's latest: Vanilla & Anise.  I smelled it last night, and despite being somewhat leery of vanilla scents, I fell for it.  It's not at all sweet, unlike so many vanilla-based perfumes, and it's very spicy.  It has a powdery top-note from the vanilla and has notes of cinnamon and cloves underneath it, I love it  (I may have tweeted something about a dentist covered in custard at the time, but let's keep that under our hats, shall we?)  It's just that little bit different to my more incense-y favourites, and I think it's going to become a new staple.

Do you change your perfumes with the seasons?

Organic Wednesday - Plant Love II: The Review

I already said a fair bit about Plant Love during the makeover part of Organic Wednesday, so this won't be a long post!  I've tried a few ranges of organic colour cosmetics recently, and I have to say that Plant Love is definitely a cut above as far as I'm concerned.  The colours in the eyeshadows are strongly pigmented, they're easy to apply and blend plus the colour selection is wider than the usual round of sludge colours you get in some organic/natural ranges. Genna has stated that the Parakeet e/s is one that she's going to use on a regular basis, she liked it so much!

I like the easy to apply lipsticks too, the one we had  (Joshua Tree) was shimmery without being frosted which is spectacularly difficult to pull off, staying power seemed about average, it had to be reapplied after a couple of hours, but we didn't have any issues with dryness.

For me though, the stand out product has to the Natural Baked Illuminator.  There are three of these in the range: Earth, Wind and Fire.  Earth is a selection of bronzing shades, Wind has a hint of subtle pink blush with the bronze and Fire has a gorgeous bright pink blush in there.  I have Wind (if you'll pardon the pun) and I've used it every single day since it arrived, it's perfectly pigmented, and makes your skin just glow, I adore it, and it's now a makeup staple of my very own.  Just swirl your blusher brush over the marbled powder and either use it as you would your blusher, or use as you would a bronzer (for Earth and Wind) for a brightening effect.

I do have to say that I think the packaging is a bit of a misfire, I love the fact that it's all vegetable based and compostable, but these are actually serious cosmetic products, and whilst the pink packaging is pretty, it's a little too "girly" and makes the items look cheap.  That said, I'll be investing in at least the other two illuminators, and a couple more of the lipsticks, pretty soon.  I've discovered that blusher is a lot more important to my make up bag than I ever previously suspected!  The range starts from £10 and is exclusively available from Puresha