Random Sunday Stuff

It's been a pretty emotional week on Get Lippie, I was astonished by the reaction to my post on Thursday, and just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who took the time to comment, tweet and email me with their experiences, and support.  My readers are amazing, and I'm glad you're here, thank you all for not making me regret publishing that piece, rather the opposite.

In other news, I also had my contribution to a brand new online magazine published this week:

I'm writing about high-tech beauty products - click on the picture above and flick through to page 68 if you want to read what I have to say.  It's a gorgeous magazine and I'm really proud to have been asked to take part! 

Also, the lovely, wonderful and amazing people at Escentual.com (without whom my Project Perfume wouldn't be possible, but more about that later on) voted me their blog of the week. They had some really lovely things to say about Get Lippie, which made me feel all warm and fuzzy.  You can see what they had to say here:

So, that's what's been going on here this week, there's loads more shallow stuff coming up on Get Lippie this week, so please stay tuned!

This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.

Katie: My Beautiful Friends.

I was approached to write this piece, and it's a little different to what I'd normally put on here - it's certainly a lot more personal, for which I apologise in advance - so I do hope people won't mind too much.

On Tuesday evening, I sat and watched the Channel Four TV show Katie: My Beautiful Friends and found it extraordinary. Normally, I find TV shows about disfigurement exceptionally difficult to watch, and I very deliberately avoided watching Katie: My Beautiful Face (which was the precursor to this show) a Cutting Edge documentary shown in 2009 about Katie Piper's recovery from being attacked with sulphuric acid by a man she met on Facebook, as I knew I would find it painful. 

Let me tell you why.


My problem - if you can call it that, I suspect that it's more a form of "over-identification", as you shall see - with TV programmes like this stems from my own - very minor - experience of disfigurement.  I was never what you would call a pretty child: pudgy, verging on ginger, and I had a gap between my two front teeth you could park a bicycle in.  When I was five, I went to bed perfectly normal, and woke up with strabismus.  Essentially I went cross-eyed in my sleep, which is pretty rare to happen so suddenly, especially when you wake up so severely cross-eyed that only the white of the crossed eye is visible, which is was happened to me.

I had to undergo major eye surgery several times to correct it, and endured brain scans, blood tests, and vision tests many, many times during my childhood, as they were worried about brain tumours and cerebral palsy, amongst other - scarier - things.  In the mid-70's, none of these tests were a minor undertaking (if you've ever seen the brain-scan scene in The Exorcist, it's based - almost entirely - on the actual medical procedure of the time).  Quite where my mum found her resources of strength to deal with all this, I will never know.


My childhood wasn't really a fun place.  Added to my gappy teeth, the pudginess, the nearly-gingerness, and the constant medical tests and surgery, I then had to endure a year or two of wearing eye-patches, and the adhesive on those things (no sexy black patches on elastic for this kid, no!  Industrial strength Elastoplast all the way, baby!) ripped my eyebrow out, every single time.  So, I was a one-eyebrowed, cross-eyed, chubby ginger child with teeth pointing both east and west, usually to be found wearing smeary pink NHS glasses.  I still have nightmares about those glasses to this day.


I was not popular.  I was not cool.  And I was bullied, unmercifully all the way through school, even after the eyepatch disappeared.  Possibly unsurprisingly, as I was also rather unpleasant.  Whiny, needy, and something of a smart-alec (some things never change).  I was rather isolated, and convinced I was horrific to behold - so I separated myself from people.  Usually via sarcasm (as I said, some things never change), but normally just by being by myself. I read a lot, and wasn't really good in groups of other kids.  Still not, as it happens.  Anyhoo.

I remember, on a family holiday not long after my first surgery, hearing my mother say to one of the holiday camp photographers (we were at Butlins and they followed you everywhere back then) not to take pictures of me as she was "ashamed" to see them. Once in a while she'd yell "no pictures!" if anyone else tried to take a picture too.  Even now, Mum will still make jokes about how terrible I looked back then, and the word hideous is usually used. It still hurts, the fact that my mother thought she couldn't look at me, even when my realistically, my "disfigurement" was very minor, and, as it turned out, purely temporary.  It wasn't quick though, I didn't really grow into my looks until I hit my late teens, and I have days where I'm still not sure I have.

I still don't like having my photograph taken to this day, and I can never ever take a compliment seriously - these things stay with you.  I am less than I look.  Or, rather, I feel that I am less than I look. Objectively, these days, I'm a perfectly ordinary-looking woman, but there has ever been a little corner of me that is still that ugly and unloved little mite, and I carry her everywhere with me.  My little blog about "beauty" is partially a response to that, I guess.  

I, myself, may never be a "beauty", but there's always the hope, every new cosmetic release, that there's something that might help lay the ghost of my five year old self to rest.  I think I use skin cream in the hope that I'll suddenly wake up "beautiful" or even just plain "pretty", instead of the "merely passable" being I see in the mirror every morning. These last few paragraphs have been the single hardest thing I've ever written for Get Lippie, and it's possible it makes no sense as a result - or worse, makes me look like an idiot. Or both! But, I'll take my chances, I think.

Because, my experience is nothing, literally nothing compared to some of the stories on display Tuesday evening, particularly the story of Chantelle and her AVM - a condition which causes blood vessels to expand uncontrollably, and because it is Chantelle's nose that is affected, her condition threatens her life.  Such a beautiful - in all senses of the word - girl, unable to hide her affliction, and dealing with everything that life had to throw at her, including the break-up of her marriage on the eve of her life-saving operation.  Katie Piper, too, dealing with finding out about her attacker's appeal against his life sentence with such dignity and grace, these women were strong, graceful and inspirational.


Having watched the programme in full, I feel a bit ashamed of my tale further up this post, it's such a little thing compared to some of the situations some people go through in their lives, but I know that even small things like those can leave a lasting impression, and I know too that my little blog makes a difference to some people's lives from the emails I get from my readers.  Cosmetics, whilst seemingly frivolous, are a serious matter for some people, which is why I'm here, still blogging away.  And, whilst I may still upon occasion complain about my looks, as a result of this show, I'll be thinking about how I relate to my face somewhat differently.


I'm glad I watched.  Looking beyond someone's appearance (even our own) is difficult, and the programme taught me I can face up to my own issues, and I'm grateful for that.  I'm nothing like as brave as Katie or Chantelle, and I'm very glad I haven't had reason to be, and that is a lesson I'm glad to have learned.  That Katie has turned around her tragic experience and it's made her reach out to people similarly affected is astonishing - the show is following her life as she sets up the Katie Piper Foundation, which aims to set up communities in order to support people similarly affected - and the fact that she's such a lovely, unpretentious and warm girl made the programme feel like a real slice of a life shared, and that's been a real inspiration.


Thank you, Katie.  I shall now watch My Beautiful Face, and really put my issues in order.


Watch the first episode here on C4 on demand and tune into the next episodes every Tuesday at 9pm on C4.






The Fine Print: This has been a sponsored post, however, I shall donate part of my fee to The Katie Piper Foundation.


This post originated at: http://getlippie.com/ All rights reserved.

Accessorize Molten Truffle

People were asking me recently to post more about affordable beauty products ... well, how does £1.50 for one of the most beautiful eyeshadows I have ever seen* grab you?

Wandering around my local Superdrug recently, I finally spotted the Accessorize makeup stand.  I realise I'm the last blogger on earth to have discovered the makeup, but hey ho.  I picked up the nail varnishes in Aztec and Bronze which are as beautiful as I've been lead to believe (and an utter bargain at £4.50 each), but more about those later.  I noticed a little sign saying the pigment pots were £1.50 each, and picked this one up, it's a cool taupe, one of those perfect greybrownpurple shades, and I was instantly smitten.

However, it wasn't until I swatched it that I realised just how beautiful it was.  The powder is gloriously soft, silky, smooth and so complex a shade that it's actually incredibly difficult to describe.  So here are some really terrible photographs in an attempt to explain:

The second picture actually picks up a hint of the multi-tonal microshimmer - alongside the greybrownpurple of the basic pigment itself, there are hints of pink, bronze and green shimmer.  It puts my beloved Le Metier de Beaute Le Circ palette to shame.

There. I said it.

And breathe. 

Here's another dreadful pic of how it looks on my eyes:

Eyeliner: Illamasqua Abyss, Mascara: Armani Eyes to Kill

 Hmn, my eyelids are unexpectedly creased here, I have been trialling a sealing gel that I'm not hugely impressed with.  So I shall blame that.  DAMN you stupid sealing gel that has given me creased-up eyelids!  

And now, here's an awful full-face pic that doesn't show the eyeshadow at all, but it's my blog, and I like seeing my new pink pearls in photos:

Still aggravated by that sealing gel, obviously.

So, there you go, one bargainalicious beauty product, that even at full-price (£4.50) would still be a bargain.  I'm going back for Molten Khaki tomorrow.




*It's okay if you don't think it's beautiful too.  It's TAUPE, I gettit ... 

The Fine Print: I bought everything I'm wearing in this blog post.  Including the perfume.

This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.

When Poppy King met No7

A brand new range of lip products were born:

 
I can't deny that I have a bit of a fangirl crush on Poppy King, aka the Lipstick Queen,  she's a stylish lady who is basically dedicating her life to lipstick.  Much like myself but, you know, with style and a lipstick company, and business sense and stuff.  I own something from practically every release she's done over the last few years or so, and, even when I think the ideas are a bit suspect (hello Jean Queen), I can't deny that she's onto something.


Poppy believes that there's a perfect lipstick (indeed a perfect red lipstick) for everyone, even people who hate lipstick, and this, her latest collection of lipsticks - and glosses - in collaboration with No7, which is released this week, is almost entirely perfectly pitched, in my opinion.


The lipsticks and glosses are entirely without shimmer, sparkle and glitter (and expect me to have more to say about glitter in cosmetic products later on in the week), and flavour, which makes a refreshing change.  There are seven shades in the range which runs the gamut from nudes to pinks to reds to browns to berries.


At the recent press launch, I was given Romance and History to try - which are, luckily the two I'd have gone right out and purchased that day, had they been available!

Swatches:

As you can see, both the glosses and the lipsticks swatch on the sheer side, Romance is a nice neutral pink, and History a sheer neutral red, not too orange, not too blue. Now, whilst they are sheer, they are buildable, particularly if you layer the gloss and lipstick together.  

Here, I'll demonstrate:


Romance:

History:

As you can see, alone, the lipsticks are sheer, and have a satin - not too glossy - finish, but adding a slick of the (slightly sheer on it's own) lipgloss intensifies the colours.  


Both the gloss and lipsticks are hydrating, and non-drying, although the wear is about average for such a balm-like product, a couple of hours, and they won't really last much beyond your morning cup of coffee. But they are so soft and hydrating that re-applying them isn't too much of a problem.  Best of all, the lipgloss isn't sticky!


The packaging on the lipsticks is nice, it's very different to normal No7 offerings, which I normally think look a bit cheap - even the special limited editions.  Metal cased, and rather on the small side, they actually contain a full-size lipstick, and they're more than comparable to the original Lipstick Queen lipsticks, including price, as they're going on sale for £12 each.


Sadly, the lipgloss packaging isn't that brilliant - Poppy explained it wonderfully at the launch, talking of Bakelite, Man Ray and Marilyn Monroe, and other such great visuals, and her lookbook was amazing ... but, just adding a spotty lid to a lipgloss isn't really that inspiring, to be honest.  Also, the doe foot applicator doesn't pick up much product - and tends to wipe off that which you do apply -  I'd have much preferred a brush, particularly for layering!  The lipgloss will be available for £11.


The range will be available both in-store and online later this week, I'll be going in to pick up one or two of the other shades, will you?

The Fine Print: PR samples received at press launch, but I'd have happily handed over actual cash-money for merely the opportunity to sit and gas with Poppy and Lisa Eldridge even without the goody bag! 


This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.

Public Beauty

 I don't know about you, but I'm a bit squeamish.  Also, I like to keep my beauty routines strictly between me and the bathroom mirror (for the purposes of this post, my blog doesn't count, mmkay?).  So, when I spotted a booth - and I use the phrase lightly - offering tooth-whitening for the bargain basement price of £135 in my local shopping mall, I was a bit horrified.


Ok, a lot horrified.


A shonky booth made of posters of unattainably white teeth, promising superb results in an hour or less, right between a set of escalators, and the entrance to Tesco for maximum footfall doesn't strike me as the best place in the world to get your teeth seen to.  Now, I'm not saying they were cowboys (I didn't catch the name of the company), but ... what if something went wrong?  


Tooth whitening, whilst it's taking place is not sexy, it's not comfortable, and it can be a little painful - would you want people desperate to get at the Krispy Kreme stand, or going up the escalators looking on whilst you have your mouth clamped open?  Really?  You're so vulnerable in the chair, would you want to be gawped at?

I've noticed that fish pedicures are becoming more commonplace in shopping centres too - please don't get me started on those.  Putting aside my issues with feet for a minute, I can't help thinking that fish pedicures are a bit ... cruel to the fish.  But, why would you want to get your feet done openly in a shopping centre?

Anyhoo, I'm digressing a bit, and possibly being a little hypocritical because I have had beauty treatments in department stores, but things like manicures, and eyebrow threadings only.  Treatments unlikely to need medical attention if things go wrong, in other words.  The reason it costs so much in a dental surgery is that you're paying for professional attention, and follow-up, things you're unlikely to get in a shopping centre.


Am I wrong?  Would you be prepared to undergo the indignity for the chance of prettier teeth?  How far would you go in public to be "beautiful"?


This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.

Giveaway winners!

Okay, it's time to announce my winners, and random.org hasn't let me down today, as I'm delighted to announce my two winners as  ....

Winner No1 (Chanel)

JoBetterDays from Music And Makeup

Winner No2 (mystery prize)

Rebecca from Oh Panda

Congratulations, ladies!  Please drop me an email to let me know your delivery addresses, and I'll get them out to you ASAP.

Thank you to every single one of you who entered, I loved reading all your suggestions, and I've had some great ideas for posts from them.  Who know storage ideas would be so popular?

There will be another giveaway in April, so not too long to wait now.

Lx

This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.

A Week In Lipstick

I took these out of my handbag just now. It's obviously been a pink lips kind of week!




Man, I'm predictable ...