Clarins Instant Light Blush Vitamin Pink and Coral Tonic

  
I spotted these in the Garden Pharmacy in Covent Garden a few weeks ago, and I was instantly smitten.  I'm on a bit of a blush kick at the moment, and these are pretty different offering from a brand like Clarins, so I couldn't wait to give them a try.

Packaged in cute nail-varnish like bottles, and brought out as part of the new spring collection, there are two shades:

When you remove the lid, there's a big sponge applicator, which is MUCH better than a brush for giving you an even application, it diffuses the gold-shot shades over the skin quite well.

It's a similar size to your fingertip, so is easy to use, and it spreads the product quite well over the skin.  I still like to finish off with my actual fingertips though, I'm a fussy mare.


Swatches:

As you can see, there's a tiny amount of shimmer when the product is unblended, but this is there for depth of shade, and stops it looking "flat" on the skin rather than to add sparkle.  Once blended the shades have a translucent quality, and add a delightful flush to the skin:

A little bit of this goes a long way, and I can see I'm totally going to be obsessed with the coral shade come summer when I'm a little darker, but these are genuinely gorgeous, and because I'm a lazy so-and-so, I like the fact that I don't need a highlighter too.

The Fine Print: PR Samples.  But they're ones I would have bought anyway.  Obsessed I am.  OBSESSED.
This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.

Lipstick of the week

With the wind and the snow this week, I felt the need for balm, but I wasn't quite content to go the colourless route, so I dug out my collection of Lanolips.  

From left to right we have:
Lanolips Rhubarb
Lanolips Dark Honey
Lanolips Rose I love the lanolips formula, and I wear these often, even when I don't really need balm.  My favourite, in particular, is the Dark Honey as you can probably tell from the picture above ... I understand Lanolips are bringing out a collection of body products soon, and I'm looking forward to trying them.
Topshop Gloss Stick in Glisten This is a very pretty, longlasting, gloss.  It's more of a sheer lipstick than a gloss, owing to the high level of pigment.
Revlon Just Bitten Lipstain in Plum Wicked I daren't even tell you how old this bottle is, but it was a limited edition from a Halloween collection did a few years ago.  And, by years, I probably mean about a decade or so.  It's still good though - I bought back ups of this by the score!  It's a rollerball, and it's very handy for layering, as you'll see.
Revlon Just Bitten Lipstain and Balm in Frenzy This is the newest version of Just Bitten Lipstain, which has a felt tip pen at one end, and a silicone-based balm at the other to add gloss.  It's a good product, but I doubt I'll still have this one in a few years, the pen will have dried out ...


Swatches:

Swatched in the same order, but at the end I've layered Wicked Plum over Frenzy, to deepen the red - Frenzy can look a little fuschsia on my lips if I'm not careful, and I wanted a deep, deep, longlasting red on Saturday to last me through my panel appearance at TOWIB - it did the trick!

What've you been wearing?  Here's a little teaser of just some of the stuff that's coming up later this week ...

 

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

Get Lippie is now on Facebook

Yes, it's taken me long enough, I know - but there you go.

Anyway, it's here, it's very bare, so bear with me: Get Lippie on Facebook

Please don't let me be lonely over there.  When I figure out the widget, I'll get one, but in the meantime you'll have to join by following the link.  Old Skool! 

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

Debenhams Beauty Club Awards Close Soon

Did I mention I was judging the Debenhams Beauty Club Awards this year?  Did I mention that the nomination period is closing soon?  Did I mention you can win one of two goody bags worth around £1000 (containing all 30 of last years winning products) if they get up to 20,000 votes?  Did I mention that they also have 10 runner up prizes of goody bags stuffed with award-winning products as well?

I didn't? Shame on me.  Still, you know now, so go get voting.  No excuses: http://on.fb.me/w48ldS  

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

Valentine Special - Own A Colour

I don't normally do Valentine-based stuff on Get Lippie, being a big old heartless hairy-armed knee-jerk harpie and all that, but an email fell into my in-box this week, and I had to share it.   I've already got a lipstick named after me, so I thought it was about time the incomparable MrLippie had something named after him, too.  Luckily, OwnAColour.com have come to the rescue.

In a charitable initiative to support Unicef, Own A Colour have linked up with Purple Ronnie and Dulux, and in exchange for a minimum donation of £1 you can gift a colour to your loved one, they get to name it anything they like!  Also, in exchange for your donation, and alongside their choice of colour, Purple Ronnie will write a personalised little love poem especially for your Valentine!  All you have to do is log onto their Facebook page to find out how.

Who could resist? Turns out I couldn't.  Purple Ronnie was kind enough to write me a little poem about the blog, and also drew a little picture of how he saw Get Lippie.  And, as Mr Lippie somehow made his way into the picture, I simply had to share it!

Your make-up can go badly wrong

If you’re not in the know -

Louise makes sure Get Lippie

Is the only place to go!

Not actually a photo.  Spooky resemblance though, right?*

Click onto the Own A Colour Facebook page to get your own poem and colour (no picture, I'm afraid) for your loved one. Help children, please support Unicef.


The Fine Print: NOT a sponsored post - Get Lippie has made a donation to charity as a result of the email. 
 
PS: Sorry to have spoiled your Valentine surprise, M!  I have no idea how Purple Ronnie found out about the dicky bow thing ... oh, and by the way,  we are TOTES getting matching T-shirts with this on, oh yes.


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

Gielly Green Salon, Shampoos and Hair Masks.

A few months ago, I was invited to a very special wedding, in an extremely special location, my hair needed doing, and it's fair to say I'd gotten into a bit of a flap about my wedding preparations. This, not least because I was also the makeup artist for the bride on the day ... more about that, hopefully, in a later blog post.


Gielly Green, the beautiful Marylebone-based hair salon came to my rescue, offering me a complimentary blow-dry on the day of the occasion, and I owe them a long-overdue thanks!   Founded a few years ago by Fred Gielly and Shai Greenberg, the salon is calm and very welcoming, and you can tell just by walking through the doors that the entire team puts a great emphasis on customer service.  It's a very lovely, and extremely comfortable salon too:

My visit was on a very busy Friday morning, but even so, I wasn't rushed or made to feel unwelcome.  After having a look at my hair Fred decided I needed a little conditioning treatment first, and so I had an application of their Argan Rescue (which can be used as both a treatment and a styling serum), then a glorious shampoo in what are, it has to be said, the most comfortable backwash chairs I've found in the six and a half years since I moved to London:

I seriously do not know why it is that so many salons in London think it's okay to have chairs that would be rejected from Abu Ghiraib for being "too uncomfortable", but these chairs are a thing of beauty, if I hadn't have been fretting about getting to a wedding on time, I'd have been quite happy to have spent the rest of the day snoozing in one of these babies ...


As for my blow-dry, well, it was perfect, bouncy, shiny, full of body, and I loved it.  If you have a chance to go along to the salon,  then do take my word for it, Fred is a genius with a hairdryer and a round brush.  I'm a hard woman to please when it comes to my hair, but I was very impressed with both the salon overall, and the hair I left the salon with.  Pictures will come when I get access to the wedding pictures!


I was so impressed with the salon, that I agreed to trial some of the home hair products that Gielly Green have produced.  I was sent the Repair Shampoo and the Repair Mask to deal with my coloured hair.

Classily packaged,  the products have a zingy scent of lemongrass, which is really lovely, and I found both the shampoo and mask to be wonderfully moisturising on the hair.  I'm not particularly a fan of the pot-style mask (I hate getting products under my nails), but this is a rich and thick cream that will add moisture to even the most parched of hair:

Sadly, my scalp (notoriously sensitive, and the bane of my existence when it flares up) didn't enjoy the products as much as my hair did, and this lead to a worsening of my seborrhic dermatitis and I had to discontinue use after about ten days.


That said, these products are parabens and SLS-free, and normally I'd expect them to work with most sensitive scalps, in this case, I suspect the problem was mine, rather than the products.


Overall, I'd be happy to go back to the salon on a regular basis, and I'd happily recommend the home products to anyone with a less temperamental scalp than my own.


The Fine Print: Get Lippie was a guest of Gielly Green, and products were provided for review purposes.

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

Lipstick of the Week - Clarins Gloss Prodige

Well, I said last week that I was planning on wearing just one brand over the next seven days, and, I during a delightful afternoon tea with the Clarins PR, I was presented with these, so it seemed like perfect timing!  These glosses are part of the new Spring collection from Clarins, which is out on counters at the moment.  Eight shades have been released, in shades of  nude, coral and pink.

So, what do they look like? 

Displayed in numerical order, you can see the glosses are pigmented, and contain varying levels of shimmer, from the least ( Rose) to the most (Grenadine).  The glosses are highly fruit scented - they smell of Skittles! - and slightly sticky.

A slightly better representation of the colours there, but this doesn't show off the shimmer.

The glosses vary slightly in pigmentation, ranging from deeply coloured, to barely there:

You can see that the two really nude shades are essentially slightly milky, but more or less clear glosses, for me they'd be good for toning down slightly too dark lipsticks, but they don't show up at all on my fairly highly pigmented lips. The other shades do show up on my lips, and 01 Chocolate was an unexpectedly wearable colour, I fell in love a bit with the multi-tonal microshimmer in that one.

My picks from the selection won't be a a surprise for anyone who's followed this blog for any period of time, but I was drawn to the pinks: 04 Candy, 06 Raspberry and 07 Blackberry:

These are such cheery and pretty shades, and Raspberry in particular has quickly become a handbag staple, I love it. 

Wear is about average for lipgloss, two to three hours or so, depending on what you're doing.  Fans of highly scented lip-products will love the fruity taste, as well.

Ingredients list:

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