Get Lippie in The Scented Letter

If you're already a VIP subscriber to The Perfume Society, then you may already have read the February edition of the The Scented Letter, which has this article in it.  Half a love letter to my husband - it's the "Love & Scents" edition, after all! - The Smell of Love is ... Gravy is also an account of my struggle with anosmia, phantosmia and parosmia over the last 12 months.

It's one of the longest, not to mention toughest, pieces I've ever had to write, and I'm incredibly proud that it has been included in a magazine that has regularly featured some of the greatest perfume writers around.  Quite a thrill! I admit a few tears were shed when I finally saw it "in print".

Also, there's a tiny hint in there of something MEGA-exciting that I'm working on with Sarah McCartney of 4160 Tuesday's right now too.  More about that nearer the time ...

The Even Finer Print: We're not featuring full fragrance reviews on Get Lippie at the moment owing to illness - please see The Parosmia Diaries for more.


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Triple Dry Anti-Perspirant

You may or may not know this, but I have a bit of a smell problem at the moment. No, not like that, but my parosmic condition means that I can't smell myself (I can't smell you, either, don't worry), and not only can I not smell myself, I can't smell any of the smells I produce, either.  Any of them.  Not a one.  No, not even that one.  Seriously.

Now, whilst this makes the early evening commute more of a pleasure because I can't smell other passenger's BO, or stinky feet in the summer, it can make me a bit paranoid. Well, let's face it, just because *I* can't smell myself doesn't mean other people can't either.  It's a bit awkward, to say the least.  Oh, I'm clean, I still shower, and I still use perfume (some of which I can actually smell, a bit, but more about that in another post), but ... yes, I worry.  So would you, I assure you.

So the last few months have seen me move to a more hardcore kind of an armpit product, and I've been trialling Triple Dry for  a while now, and I have to say that for my requirements, it's really good.  Triple Dry is actually an anti-perspirant, and its unique selling point is that you only need to apply it three times a week.   Apparently, you're supposed to apply it nightly for four nights, shower as normal in the mornings (it's waterproof) and then after that, you apply it every two or three days as you would a normal deodorant product. It kills the bacteria that produce odour, so you don't need a different scented product to go with it.

I like it because it is unscented, and as such both doesn't irritate my irritable nose, and doesn't clash with any of the limited scented products that I do apply.  I have to admit that I do not use it in the way you are supposed to - being as paranoid as I am, I can't trust it that much - I use it as I would any deodorant/antiperspirant, going for a daily swipe in my clean pits.  So far, no problems, and on the odd occasion where I have forgotten to apply (happens to the best of us!), no problems then, either.  I go through an elaborate "how do I smell" ritual with my husband in the morning - parosmia does rather tend to strip one of one's dignity at times - and he's had no issues.

It's on the pricey side for an antiperspirant - I prefer the stick version to any other, which is the priciest of all - coming in at around £7.50 or so, but it lasts well, mine is several months old now, which when you consider I'm using it two or three times more than I'm supposed to, is pretty good going.  And hey, what price trust?

The Fine Print: Purchase

The Even Finer Print: We're not featuring full fragrance reviews on Get Lippie at the moment owing to illness - please see The Parosmia Diaries for more.


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La Roche Posay Serozinc

I was talking to someone about my skincare routine the other day, and I realised that whilst cleansers come and go, whilst acids wax and wane, and whilst moisturisers pass in and out of fashion in the Lippie household, one thing has remained constant for the last three or four years, and that is Serozinc from La Roche Posay.

It's rather unprepossessing, really.  A mix of spring water, zinc and just a hint of salt, in a spray but I genuinely wouldn't be without it.  It's my go-to facial spray, as it should be for anyone with any hint of sensitivity or redness. It's the zinc, you see, which both soothes and helps to heal irritated or over-activated skin.  If you're not prone to redness or sensitivity, then I guess you'll find it hard to see what difference it can make to your skin, but this is one of those products that you notice the difference when you stop using it, I can assure you.  And it is cheap, just £7.20 a can (at present), which will last you for several months, at least three, maybe even longer.  I use it both as a moisturising toner, and as a general facial spray, and I occasionally use it to "set" makeup that looks a little powdery too.

Now I'm delighted (well, sort of) that you can now get this in the UK!  Previously, I used to beg any of my friends heading to Paris to pick me up a tin or two, or I always used to pick up a tin whenever I went too, and now I don't need to ... That's my excuse for Paris shopping trips out of the way then.

So YAY! for Serozinc finally being available in the UK!  And BOO! for Serozinc finally being available in the UK. Escentual, thank you very much.  And damn you!


The Fine Print: Purchase

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Sunday Riley Artemis Hydroactive Cellular Face Oil

At this time of year, I always think a decent facial oil is an essential rather than an optional ingredient in your skincare regime, they add an extra level of protection to your skin in the wind and the rain and the cold, and they are a godsend on chapped and sore skin.  I have a few that I rotate (Clarins is an exceptional source of affordable facial oils on the high street, btw), but recently I have fallen, hard, for this little bottle of oily goodness.

A clarifying oil, with claims to be balancing (it also claims to be lemon-scented, but more about that later), it contains black cumin seed oil, pomegranate seed oil, lemon ironbark and lemon myrtle oils alongside milk thistle seed oil.  It's quite a thick and sticky oil, which you'll only need two or three drops of for your whole face and neck, and it is a bright and cheerful sunshine yellow both in the bottle and out.  The major claims for the product include soothing redness and irritation, it's an anti-inflammatory, and it is also said to neutralise the bacteria that causes spots!

Since I've added this to my regime, in place of other, thinner and lighter oils, I genuinely have noticed that my continual redness, which is the bane of my life, has been both less frequent to arrive and shorter-lived when it does actually appear.  In fact, there have been a couple of days when I've felt able to go without foundation, something previously unthinkable in the winter months!  It sinks in easily, even though it's rather sticky, and this is a blessing given the major "problem" with the product, which is:

The smell.

Actually, the smell is a major factor when it comes to any Sunday Riley oil, and it is both a blessing and a curse ... Sunday Riley Artemis oil smells like a broccoli graveyard farted on your face. (as does Juno, btw)  It doesn't last long at all, it's gone almost as soon as you apply, but even with my currently lessened sense of smell, it gives me pause before applying it.  Now, that out of the way, I actually quite like the fact that Sunday Riley doesn't bother adding a whole bunch of unnecessary essential oils to a product like this just to disguise the fact that the actual active ingredients don't smell the nicest.  It's refreshing that all the ingredients in the formula are there because they have a job to do on your skin, rather than on your nose.

The smell has an added benefit too, because you'll use less of it than you normally would an oil product, and when you consider that the bottle costs £98, this isn't such a bad thing!  I've used mine daily for three months, and I've barely made a dent on the 30ml bottle, I estimate I'll get at least a year's use out of it.  I'm lucky, mine was a gift, but I would definitely re-purchase this once it's run out.  I used to use Juno, and I loved it, but Artemis, for my money, and my sensitive, reddened slightly combination skin is even better.

You can buy Sunday Riley Artemis Hydroactive Cellular Face Oil from Cult Beauty

What's the worst-smelling beauty product you've ever used?

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Clinique Chubby Sculpting Sticks in Curvy Contour and Hefty Highlight

Just a week after I featured one simple contour kit (with an unfortunate typo) along comes another, even simpler, one from Clinique.  Another extension to the astonishingly successful Chubby Stick range, this features one contour crayon, and one highlighter and is easy enough even for the most cack-handedly muppety of us.

Really, it's almost insultingly simple to use - draw a dark line where you want a shadow (underneath your cheekbone), a light line where you want to highlight (above your cheekbone), and blend away until only a subtle shading remains.

Even I can do it.  But, apparently drawing lines a la Adam Ant circa 1982 and humming Ant Music under your breath is completely optional whilst applying.  If you do go the unorthodox route, can I suggest you lock your bathroom door?  No reason.

Unblended, you can see you have a slightly reddish brown contour, and a pale champagne highlight shade, and I imagine they will work on all but the darkest of skins.

I applied rather too much of the Curvy Contour as you can no doubt tell - I'd probably applied enough for about four faces, and could possibly have contoured all the residents of Lippie Mansions should I have had the desire.  Which I didn't, and let's all be thankful for that - but the colours blend well, and even after a (literally) ten second application process this morning even *I* could pretend I had cheekbones.

All this brings me to the price, the Chubby Sculpting Sticks  in Curvy Contour and Hefty Highlight are £19. Each.  Which is £38 for the set*.  Which is, if you ask me, far too expensive.  Even the Laura Mercier kit which comes with "amusing" typos, and five colours is cheaper at £35.  The Chubby sticks are drier in texture, and you do get more product, and they are almost entirely foolproof (and I'm just the fool to prove it, believe me) but ... the price for the both gives me the heebie jeebies.  Hopefully there will be an offer which gives you a discount for buying both at the same time, but to be honest, you could use any highlighter you like with the contour crayon.

So, how committed to contouring are you?

* I'm an accountant.  Maths is totally my jam, bitches.

The Fine Print: PR Sample

The Even Finer Print: We're not featuring full fragrance reviews on Get Lippie at the moment owing to illness - please see The Parosmia Diaries for more.


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May Lindstrom: The Blue Cocoon: Beauty Balm Concentrate

I am always being asked what my "major skin concern" is.  Why, I'm not quite sure, but it is, apparently, one of the perils of being a beauty blogger. I'm not nearly that bothered about ageing as I used to be, having met a few too many over-botoxed harridans in my time, and I now see wrinkles as a badge of character instead of the hideous disfigurements that the mainstream media, alongisde countless beauty product press releases, and the continuing overuse of photoshop in almost every area of life (ever noticed how barely anyone on Instagram has pores, lines or moles?) has lead us to believe they are.

But ... I do get hacked off about my skin being so red all the time.  I actually have pretty good skin for my age (I am well over forty, and no longer care so much), it's smooth, it's fairly unlined, and the adult-onset acne I was plagued with through my late twenties and most of my thirties is now but a distant memory, but oh, the redness!   I long for even skin.

Part of it is because the industrial-strength products I used to torture my face with in years gone by has left me with skin more ridiculously over-sensitive than a teenage goth reading poetry at a Metallica gig, and part of it is because it is now winter, and the cold and the wind and the rain and the central heating, coupled with the fact that I like a glass of wine every now and again, all leave my skin screaming for soothing products.

I discovered May Lindstrom The Blue Cocoon after I got a text from Caroline Hirons saying "Oi, Lippie! You.  This.  Face.  Now", and I was powerless to resist.  Well, I say that, it actually took me a while to save up the cash for this, as it is £125 a pot.

You read that right.  £125 a go. And it is a very small jar.

But I bought it anyway, and the picture you see above is how much I've used in the four or five months (we're nothing if not timely at Get Lippie) of using it several times a week.  I've barely made a dent, as a little bit of this goes a hugely long way. It's aptly named as a "concentrate". I've found that scraping just out the tiniest amount from the surface, literally just a millimetre  or two, is more than enough to soothe even the reddest of inflamed skins.  You simply melt it into an oil in your hands, then press it gently into your face, concentrating on on inflamed areas.  I don't tend to follow it up with any moisturisers, applied over gently cleansed skin, this works double-duty as both a treatment and a moisturiser.

Infused with blue tansy oil, which is a natural anti-histamine and also has anti-inflammatory effects, it soothes redness overnight, and leaves you with beautifully soft skin in the morning.  It is a little greasy, so I don't tend to use this during the day, but it does make a great night treatment.

Has it fixed my redness? No. But I genuinely don't think there is a product yet invented that will "cure" redness, especially redness caused by both genetic and environmental factors as mine is. As such, The Blue Cocoon is no exception to that, but, as I wasn't actually expecting a cure, I'm not disappointed.  I am less red though, and I am definitely red less often, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a win.  Where it does excel though, is soothing environmentally stressed skin, and it is fabulous at that.

Would I buy it again?  Possibly.  Possibly not.  As I've only got through maybe a quarter of a centimetre (not even that) of product in the last four or five months, I have a feeling the jar might just last forever.  And hey, at least that'll give me time to save up again ...

My jar of May Lindstrom The Blue Cocoon Beauty Balm Concentrate came from Cult Beauty.

The Fine Print: Purchase.  

The Even Finer Print: We're not featuring full fragrance reviews on Get Lippie at the moment owing to illness - please see The Parosmia Diaries for more.


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Vita Coco Coconut Oil

Okay, I admit it, I love luxury beauty products.  Anyone who has ever had even a slightly cursory glance through some of the posts on this blog will have noticed that.  £250 bottles of perfume, £35+ lipsticks, £50 eyeshadow palettes, £100+ skincare, all are abundant on Get Lippie and I'm not going to make any apologies for that.  I like what I like, and I feature what I like too, and that's the real luxury of a blog!

That said, I also like a bargain.  I know, inconceivable! But, I've been cleansing with coconut oil for a while now - I've tried the RMS raw coconut cream, which I like very much btw - and a couple of others sold for facial cleansing purposes too.  So, when I spotted Vita Coco Coconut Oil in my local Tesco for less than £4 for a massive jar, I thought I'd give it a go, and see if I could spot the differences to the similarly-sized £38 pot from RMS.

There isn't much difference, in all honesty.  The RMS is lightly processed, which removes some of the scent, and it has a slightly smoother consistency as a result, but as the oil starts to melt from the very first second you  put it on your hand, this isn't a big deal, really.

Vita Coco Coconut oil is entirely raw, and organic.  It's best to do a hot cloth cleanse with this, to make sure you're removing everything from your skin, and to prevent oily residues, but I genuinely can't see any difference to my skin between using this and using a pricier coconut-oil product. Coconut oil contains lauric acid (also found in breast milk), which is beneficial to skin, and the lack of essential oils, which can be irritating particularly to sensitive skins, is great too.  

I find it non-irritating even on inflamed  and reddened skin, and it's a an excellent makeup remover as well.  Careful round your eyes though - a separate eyemakeup remover will always be your friend - but it can remove even waterproof mascara, if you are careful.  It gives excellent slip, and is perfect for facial massage as a result too.

You can also use this as a moisturiser, a mask, a hair mask, a hair styling product, a lip balm, a cuticle oil, anywhere you'd use an oil normally, you can use this.  Oh, and apparently, you can cook with it ...

But, if you don't like coconut (and my parosmia does mean that on bad smell days  it is "wrong" to me - slightly burned-seeming - but that's definitely my stupid nose, not the product), you're out of luck. 

The Fine Print: Purchase

The Even Finer Print: We're not featuring full fragrance reviews on Get Lippie at the moment owing to illness - please see The Parosmia Diaries for more.


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