The Anti-Perfume: Philosophy Amazing Grace

After yesterdays boggling, something a little less controversial, I think. I like my perfumes big and strong (like I like my men, now I come to think of it*), so Philosophy Amazing Grace is a bit of a departure for me.  A light floral, with a clean musk base, it's the antipathy of practically everything in my fragrance collection.  As such, I should hate it.

But I don't.

It's the smell of towels fresh from the dryer, of sheets drying on a line on a warm sunny day, there are flowers in there (sadly indistinguishable from one another), and the smell of warm skin straight out of the shower, then fragrant laundry-musks complete the fragrance. It is, essentially, the scent of one of the more expensive washing powders on the market.  It contains the very essence of cleanliness, warmth, and cheery comfort, like taking a sweater from the cupboard and giving it a sniff and realising it still has just a hint of the perfume you wore last buried deep in its folds. Which is a neat trick, when you think about it. 

Amazing Grace is a great fragrance for those who think they don't like perfume, or aren't  allowed to wear highly fragranced products because of their jobs, but still wish to smell clean, polite, and inoffensive.  That's why I've labelled this post "The Anti-Perfume", because this is how I see Amazing Grace: a nice smell, but it sure as heck ain't a "fine fragrance".

If all that sounds like I'm damning Amazing Grace with faint praise, I'm actually not. For a long time I wore only Demeter Laundromat which really does smell like fabric conditioner (I'm weird, shut up), and Amazing Grace is also a good replication of that smell.  I genuinely like it a great deal, it's simple, easy to wear, rather pretty, and great way to smell "nice" without anyone wondering where the faint smell of burning tar/mangrove swamp/fly spray is coming from, as can happen with some of my more ... er ... avant garde scentsations.  It has the lasting power of your average mayfly though, so if you want it to last (at least slightly longer), then layer it over the matching body products - the shower gel in particular is extremely good.

Now, if I could only get MrLippie to STOP STEALING THE DAMN STUFF!  We're gonna need a bigger bottle ...


*Hugh Jackman.  MrLippie who?

The Fine Print: PR Sample.

This post: The Anti-Perfume: Philosophy Amazing Grace originated at: Get Lippie on January 22nd 2013. All rights are reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Guerlain Eau De Lingerie

Confession time: I recently spent some time having tea with Guerlain's utterly charming, handsome (and funny with it) Thierry Wasser, and, to my complete chagrin, after an extremely pleasant, and polite, question and answer session, I - for it was, of course, I - managed to drag the conversation down so far into the gutter that Thierry ended up miming how to get into a pair of Spanx for the delight and edification of our tea-partners.  I'm not proud of myself*. If, however, Guerlain ever do produce a fragrance named "La Petite Spanx Noir", I want commission.

Which brings me politely (or not - your mileage may, as they say, vary) to this:

Perfume for your knickers.  From Guerlain.  Guerlain say:

"Close to the skin, in the very place where fragrance settles, our lingerie lies... and this inspired Guerlain to conceive of an innovative beauty ritual. A delicate new fragrance to spray onto lingerie, creating a special moment of sensuality in which women are invited to indulge..."

To which I say: " ...er ... does it come with a free tube of Canesten?"  Now, admittedly my "special moments of sensuality" these days usually involve a jammy doughnut, a nice cup of tea, and a brief half an hour with the Hugh Jackman DVD+ of my choosing, but still ... a fragrance too far?  I think I'd rather scent my drawers than my "drawers", personally.  What say you?

It'll be available exclusively in Harrods from February.  The perfect Valentine's gift ... 
  
* This sentence may be a lie**

** IS a lie.  It may be the single proudest moment I've ever had as a blogger.  I am, however, now banned from the Connaught Hotel tea-rooms as a result.

+ Paperback Hero, seeing as you didn't ask.

Image shamelessly stolen from Basenotes.
  
This post: Guerlain Eau De Lingerie originated at: Get Lippie on 21st January 2013. All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Wedding Prep with Braun Gillette Venus Naked Skin IPL 2

Well, I said I'd keep you posted with how I was getting on with the Gillette Venus Naked Skin IPL and here I am back to talk to you about my armpits.  I know, I'm far too kind.  No you don't have to thank me, you're welcome.

I've used it three times now - will just be able to squeeze two more treatments in before the wedding, which is now less than a month away  - and I think I can say that my hair growth has indeed slowed down, I shave less often, and it's a bit finer when the hair does come through, but ... I still do have to shave my pits on a weekly basis.  This isn't such a hardship really, but I'm hoping for more dramatic results with the next two treatments!

I was asked to provide a video of my using the system.  For the sake of both my sanity, and your eyeballs, I've gleefully had to decline that particular delight, as, well, this is a family blog, and no one deserves that, frankly.  So here's a little video of how it works, complete with a model.  It's remarkably true to how I use it, even down to the wistful gazing into the middle distance whilst writhing about in my grundies on the carpet.



Enjoy!  By the way, am I the only person on the planet who thought it was pronounced "brawn" rather than "brown"?  Well, you learn something new every day, don't you?

The Fine Print: PR Sample.  Video all my own work*.

*NOT MY OWN WORK.
  
This post: Wedding Prep with Braun Gillette Venus Naked Skin IPL 2 originated at: Get Lippie on January 20th 2013. All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Clarins Rouge Eclat Age Defying Lipstick Nude Rose & Pink Berry

It's a tough gig having a blog named after lipstick you know ... all those lipsticks and only one face to apply them to.  I mean, I've tried getting MrLippie to help out wearing all the stuff I don't have time for, but well, it's just not the same ...

Anyhoo,  These turned up last week, and they're rather nice.  A new formula from Clarins, designed to fight the signs of ageing on the lips, (something I'm not entirely convinced about, but that's by the by), but hey, let's forget about that, and look at the packaging!

Now that, my friends, is some fancy-ass lipstick packaging. I like it.  Like it rather a lot, actually.  As you're about to be able to tell:

This reminds me of Battersea Power Station for some strange reason.  I need to get out more.

 There's lipstick in here, as well.

I prefer the more neutral colours from the collection, my picks are Nude Rose, and Pink Berry, both of which will work with a variety of skintones, and are very nice everyday shades.

The formula is nice, moisturising and cushiony, it reminds me, a little of Chantecaille Lip Chics, but, is it anti-ageing?  Well, based on a couple of wears, I couldn't possibly answer that, but it doesn't dry your lips out, which is by far the most ageing thing you can do to your mush, frankly.

The Fine Print: PR Samples. Why was the sand wet? Because the sea weed!

This post: Clarins Rouge Eclat Age Defying Lipstick Nude Rose & Pink Berry originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Lipstick Queen Look of Love vs Jean Queen Comparison

Last Lipstick Queen post for a while, I promise!  In my Look of Love review last week, I mentioned that  if you owned Jean Queen you might not need Look of Love too, and a reader (waves at Pink Sith) asked if I could compare them.  So here you go. 

Artificial Light

Daylight

 I was a bit surprised to see that Jean Queen, although brighter, is actually quite a bit cooler in tone than Look of Love, in my mind, I expected it to be the other way around for some reason.  Although, seeing as Jean Queen was, essentially, designed to go with blue denim it actually makes a bit of sense.

 
All rather neutral, all very wearable, and not quite as similar as I expected.  Funny how the memory plays tricks ...


Fine Print: Mixture of purchases and PR samples.  A magician was driving down the road, then he turned into a drive way. You're loving these jokes, aren't you? I'm not.

This post: Lipstick Queen Look of Love vs Jean Queen Comparison originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Possible Wedding Manicure ...?

The wedding is now just over four weeks away.  The makeup trial has been done, the dress has been adjusted, the reception decisions are almost all made, I remain a blogger in search of a hairdo, however, and owing to budget constraints I'm going to have to do my nails myself.  Ah well, I've had fun over the last few weeks experimenting with nail colours to go with my dress.  However, I've been thinking that purple fingernails with a purple dress is just a bit too matchy-matchy for me.

After all, I have a tendency to paint my nails whatever colour I like on a Sunday evening and then just wear the hell out of it till it, basically, falls off.  As beauty bloggers go, I'm a lousy one when it comes to nails.  This combination though, happened by accident (I didn't like one of the shades, so was covering it up) but I rather like silver with purple, so at the moment, this is the front-runner for wedding-nails.  From left to right we have Out the Door topcoat in Northern Lights, which is a holographic fast-drying topcoat, OPI's Lucern-tenly Look Marvellous (which as most people call me Luce is apposite, at the least), and finally Deborah Lippman's Believe, which was created with Cher.  If you can't channel Cher on your wedding day, frankly, then I don't want to know.

The final product (two coats of Believe, one very thin coat of Lucerne, and a topcoat of Northern Lights) looks like this:

It's about four days old on my nails there, so forgive the state of it in the pictures.  It's silvery, and glittery without being too grey, and without screaming GLITTER.  What do you think?

  
The Fine Print: Purchases.  What do you call it when a dinosaur crashes his car? Tyrannosaurus Wrecks


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Lipstick Queen Saint & Sinner Wine Comparison

I was so happy with Lipstick Queen Saint Wine recently, that I immediately went out and bought the same shade in the Sinner formulation:

I own a lot of lipsticks, and, well, let's face it, if I never bought another one ever again, I'd still have enough lipstick to last me the rest of my life, even if I sprouted another face.  Or three, frankly.  Does that stop me buying it though?  Of course not. Especially when I love the shade.  And I do love this:

 A warm red, unusual for such a dark shade not to read as having orange or brown undertones, I like it because it is actually still a red on the lips.  It's a dark, dramatic shade, but not one that someone is likely to mistake you for an elderly goth when you're wearing it.  Which is nice.  I thought a comparion to the Saint formulation might be handy too, though, so if you're not that confident about wearing dark lips, you can see how both variations of Wine work for you:

You can see from the bullets that Sinner (on the left) is a little redder, and Saint has a hint of brown, making the sheerer shade appear a little more purple in the bullet.  This becomes even more apparent on swatching:

Saint will allow some of your natural lip colour through, however, making it appear less brown in wear, as you can see in the lipswatches below:

  
I find both formulations very comfortable in wear - whilst the Sinner formula is obviously less moisturising than Saint (it contains 90% pigment versus the 10% in Saint), it's not drying at all, and lasts very well, unless you're eating something greasy.  It lacks a little of the slip of Saint, but it's a matte formulation I'm happy to wear and forget about.

The Lipstick Queen Saints & Sinners range now comprises 20 shades in each formulation, up from the ten that have been around for a long time now. Which are your favourites?

The Fine Print: Mixture of PR samples and purchases.  I'm nice like that.  Why couldn't Dracula's wife get to sleep? Because of the coffin.


This post: Lipstick Queen Saint & Sinner Wine Comparison originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper