Le Belle Natural Skincare - Oil Cleanser

I do love the Natural and Organic Product show, every year I visit and discover something that I fall a little bit in love with.  Last year it was Konjac Sponges, and this year it's a cleanser from le Belle natural skincare.

I'm naturally biased towards oil cleansers anyway, having been a sufferer from adult-onset acne for many years, and making the discovery that oil-based cleansers were by far the most effective way of keeping outbreaks at bay, and they have also helped with my sensitivity issues too.  I used to have angry, reddened, spotty skin with huge patches of scaly dry skin.  Sexy!  However, since I made the (permanent) shift from foaming cleansers or facial washes, my outbreaks are minimal, and my face doesn't burn as soon as I even look at a mirror these days either.

The le Belle oil cleanser is a thick, yellow viscous oil, which doesn't emulsify with water, so I use this mainly at night, for a deep, deep cleanse, and a massage.  I've found that it's also excellent for use with a Clarisonic as it provides plenty of slip, and doesn't just get absorbed into your skin as you do a thorough cleanse routine with it.  The citrussy scent, whilst refreshing, isn't so sharp that it'll wake you up completely, don't worry.  The cleanser is based on sunflower, sesame and castor oils, so it's good and nourishing.  All le Belle skincare products are 100% plant derived and free from parabens.

But, the main reason I feel in love with the le Belle range is the ingenious packaging system behind it.  The entire range is packaged in heavy, recycled, glass jars and bottles in a beautiful cerulean blue, making them a lovely addition to any bathroom.  However, all the packaging is refillable - a bottle for life, as the le Belle website refers to it -  and the refills are these handy pouches, cutting down on packaging and weight.  They are also really handy for travel, I've discovered!  They also cost 20% less than the original bottles and jars, which is a nice bonus too.

The Cleansing Oil in the bottle will cost you £24 - I've used mine a lot in the two months since it arrived, and I anticipate there is at least four months left in the bottle now - and the refill pouch will cost you £19.  

However, le Belle have been exceedingly generous, and have offered readers of Get Lippie a discount of 20% off all purchases up to 30th June 2012, just add the (case sensitive) word "LIPPIE" at the checkout stage on their website, and you'll automatically get 20% off your order.  What are you waiting for?  Please support an independent supplier today.

Links in the post are offered for informational purposes only - they are not affiliate links.  Get Lippie won't make any commission if you make a purchase from any links in this article.  Cleanser provided for review purposes by Le Belle Natural Skincare.
This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.

Bad Hair Memories ...

This picture is about ten years old, and it's from my ill-considered ginger "highlights" and a bob combo days.

It's awful, isn't it?

Tell me about your terrible hairdos to make me feel better, please ...


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

Makeup Storage

 People are always asking how I store my makeup, and, after spending a day piddling about with instagram a couple of weeks ago, I thought I'd share the pictures here too!  This is ... most ... (not all, sadly!) of my makeup collection, arranged in a Helmer from Ikea, and in the traincase I bought from Kryolan last year. There's also a sneaky peek at the bunch of palettes I keep in a Muji box at the bottom there too...


In the train case is the majority of the products I reach for on a daily basis, my makeup "bag", if you will, here's the products most in heavy rotation at the moment:

It's a melange of foundations, blushers, eyeshadows, mascaras and eyeliners.  No lip products to be seen!  I'm on a bit of a NARS kick at the moment, you might be able to tell ...


Into the Helmer proper, the first drawer is foundations, primers, powders and other base products:

The second drawer down is my eye drawer, shadows, liners, mascaras and primers:

Yeah, more NARS, I know ...


Third drawer down is LIPS:

You might have noticed there were no lip products in the train case, this is because what I like to do on a daily basis is just stick my hand in here and wear whatever my hand lands on.  A lip lucky dip, if you like...


Fourth drawer is, of course, cheeks (have you figured out the order I do my makeup in yet? You should have!) blushers, highlighters and contours galore ...

Just the odd one or two, you know.


And finally, the bottom two drawers contain nail varnish. Drawer five mainly houses my Chanel collection:

(And the Dior, the Deborah Lippman, the Rococo and the China Glaze collections)


Whilst drawer number six is:

OPI, Estee Lauder, (man I love those bottles!) and everything else ...


The rest of my makeup is in boxes around the flat (lots of boxes around the flat), and then there's The Cupboard.


One day, dear readers, I'll show you the cupboard, and you'll realise why it gives MrLippie nightmares ...

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

L'Oreal Hair Expertise EverPure Colour Care and Smoothing Hair Care

I can't even begin to tell you how much I didn't want to love this range.  I lack the words.  I have a bathroom full - FULL - of expensive shampoos and conditioners, and the last thing I wanted to fall in love with was some £5.99 shampoo and conditioner from L'Oreal.

But I have.  So there. 

Supposedly a "no suphate" range (but I noticed the little asterisk next to this claim on the tube, and it's actually "no sulphate surfectants", which is a bit of a cheat - naughty L'Oreal!),  I've used this alongside super-expensive salon ranges, and absurdly expensive "lifestyle" ranges, but, as you can probably tell from the state of the tubes, these are the products I keep coming back to, because, unlike a few other "free-from" ranges I've tried recently - and, by "recently", I actually mean, "this year", I get through shampoo very slowly - these have never, not once, irritated my notoriously sensitive and temperamental scalp.

The shampoo foams exceptionally well for an SLS-free formula, the conditioner gives plenty of slip, and my hair is its usual super-shiny self.  It's just my inner snob that's offended at the price.

Try them, they're brilliant. 

 
 The Fine Print: PR Samples from the launch event.  Back in January.  What?  I *said* I'm slow at getting through shampoo!


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

Lipstick Queen Liptropolis Lipstick Library

 Anything new from Poppy King and Lipstick Queen always deserves a good looking at, and this latest release from Poppy is definitely worth a second look.  Visualised as the first in a series of "books" of lipsticks, Liptropolis is heavily influenced by New York, and the film "Metropolis", it's rather gorgeously designed, and is a real thing of beauty in a cluttered makeup collection:

The "book" contains three full size Lipstick Queen lipsticks, in silver casing to match the book innards:

Poppy says the colours were inspired by the various neighbourhoods around New York, and has a theory that you can tell where in the city you are by the predominant lipcolours that you see around - now I can't comment on that (though it's a theory from the woman who thought we were crying out to match our lips to our jeans, if that helps), and, as a result, the shades are named after the various neighbourhoods that inspired this theory:

Soho: "the fashionable red"
Upper East: "the elegant nude" and
Central Park "the refined peach"


On reading the descriptions, I was expecting Upper East and Central Park to be a lot less saturated than they are, personally, I'd describe the shades slightly differently, I'd contend that Upper East is actually a peach, and Central Park is more of a coral.  I think it becomes more apparent why in the swatches:

Soho is stunning in the tube, it looks like a pure, clear red, and is largely why I wanted the set in the first place.  On my skin it pulls a little more blue than I was expecting, but on the lips it's a great dramatic shade of red.  I love it.


Upper East is  ... well, peach.  And, I like it much more for being peach, as it's not one of those beige-based nudes that make people look ill.  Or, in my case, dead.  It's a lot easier to wear than I was expecting, which was great.


And my favourite: Central Park - which is a bright coral, and suits my skin perfectly.  It's on the reddish side, but that only makes me love it more.  And hey, it's "refined"!   ...


The formula is somewhere between the formulas of the famous Lipstick Queen "Saints", and "Sinners" formula, being rather more pigmented than the Saints, and less matte than the Sinners.  There's no scent - and how much do I love Poppy for refusing to scent her lipsticks?  Very much, that's how much - and the lasting time is about average, about four hours or so before you'll need to top up.

The Liptropolis Lipstick Library is available from SpaceNK and costs £40, which is a good price for three full-size lipsticks.  Poppy King lipsticks normally for around £17-18 each.  Can't wait to see what she comes up with next ... 

The Fine Print: PR Samples.  But I did have a chat with Poppy herself recently.  She's all kinds of aces.
This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.

SOS! I burned my face off!

Hi there, my name is Luce, and I am a beauty blogger.  And an idiot.  I have sensitive skin, I KNOW I have sensitive skin, and, I'll bet, half of you know I have sensitive skin too.  So why, WHY? did I decide to trial a new facemask an hour before an important lunch on Sunday?


I'll tell you why, because I'm an IDIOT.


The mask, of course, burnt my face.  Burnt my face RIGHT OFF.  I was PURPLE.  A big purple idiot.  A big purple idiot with an expensive lunch to go to.  So, what do I do when I burn my face off with a new product?  I go straight into SOS mode, and break out the Bioderma, and Darphin Intral products.  

This is a bit of an annoying post, because two of these products are only available in France, but I'm going to suggest that if you suffer from reactive skin at all, you beg steal or borrow the two Bioderma products, by any means possible.


In the first instance, I spray (and spray and spray) with the Bioderma Crealine spray, which contains zinc and other minerals, and is cooling and soothing, I spray it as often as I can bear it - it's also good on razor rash, I've found! - then alternate layers of the Darphin Intral Redness Relief Recovery Cream and the Bioderma Soothing repair cream, then keep spraying.  And spray some more.


The moral of this story is, if you are trying something new on your face, don't do it right before an important appointment.   You might go purple, and it's not a good luck ...

The FIne Print: Purchases.  Lovely, cooling and soothing purchases.  Why the HELL can't we get Bioderma in the UK?  WHY?
 
This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.

Get Lippie Lip Marker at Topshop

I'm a well-known fashion icon.  No really, stop sniggering at the back, my love of a comfy shoe, an elasticated trouser, a button-thru cardigan, a red lip, the sequinned Ugg, and, of course, my repeated use of the singular instead of the plural constantly marks me out as one of the most fashionable beauty bloggers writing today.  It's safe to say that my Motley Crue hoody has become a hot fashion classic in the six months I've been championing wearing one.

So, of course, when Top Shop were casting about for a beauty blogger to name a new beauty product after, it should come of no surprise that "Get Lippie" was top of their list.  Naturally, I'm deeply flattered, but bearing in mind my reputation as the Cindy Crawford of beauty bloggers, it comes as no real surprise! Me and Kate Moss, we're like that, you know.  I even went to Fashion Week once, and, let's face it, I taught A Model Recommends everything she knows*.

A bright, raspberry pink, the new Get Lippie Lip Marker from Topshop is a joy to use, the bullet point allows you to line your lips, and you can use the side of the bullet to fill in.

It wears fairly well, though if you eat a three course meal wearing it, you will suffer a little touch of the red ring of doom, but hey, if you you're as fashion as me, you won't, of course, be eating any meals, will you?

The colour is buildable:

The air kisses (dahlink) are two layers,  and shows the depth of colour you can get.  So fashion.  So very, very, fashion.

Best of all, it's got my name on it ...

Hang on, they spelled it wrong!  You don't think ... no, it can't be ... it wouldn't be a COINCIDENCE, would it?


Balls.  I'm going to work in  my pyjamas and Uggs.  Don't try and stop me.





* About booze, admittedly.

The Fine Print: PR sample.  It's safe to say Sir Phillip Green won't be asking me to design my own range of fashion classics any time soon.  DAMN HIS EYES.
 
This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.