Sephora Cream Lip Stains

I have a full-time job, I run two blogs, and I do volunteer work on a regular basis.  That said, I'm also a lazy bitch, so I like my makeup to last, and last well.  I've not met a lipstain that works so well as the Sephora Cream Lip Stains, whenever I'm in Paris, I make a beeline for them, and buy backups of my favourites, of which these are they.

Here we have 06 Forever Fuchsia an electric pink, 03 Strawberry Kissed a more delicate pinkish red, and 01 Always Red, which is the classic bright, bright red.

These are incredibly opaque, with total coverage, and are very matte in wear - if you're scared of bright colours, don't go near them.  They're not for the shy and retiring!

Forever Fuchsia

Strawberry Kissed

Of the three, Strawberry Kissed is my favourite, and I wear it on days I need to apply my makeup then just forget about it, because there isn't anything that will get this stuff off during a normal office day, unless you regularly spend your working hours applying donner kebab to your lips every 20 minutes or something ...

I've just noticed these are now half price on the US website, which makes me worry that these are about to be discontinued, so if you're tempted you might want to snap them up now, or start begging your US friends to send you some ...

The Fine Print: Purchases

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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Revlon Colourburst Balms

I do love a balm that stains, and I've been meaning to compare the formula of the new(er) Matte and Lacquer balms for a while now.  Me being me, I picked out the brightest shades from each, Romantic in the original Balm Stain formula, alongside Striking in Matte Balm, and Enticing in Lacquer Balm.

Romantic is a softer strawberryish shade, whilst Striking has hints of orange, turning it a strong coral-colour, and Enticing is a cool blue-red that is a very clear shade.

My bare lips:

Wearing Romantic:

On me, this is a slightly glossy, very sheer colour, which would be very easy to wear as an "everyday" red, there is colour enough to make my lips look finished, but it's not opaque enough to scare the horses.  The dusty peppermint smell is still as bad as I remember from the originals though.

Wearing Striking:

The colour is beautiful, a slightly warmed cross between coral and tomato, the matte formula is great for opaque coverage, but doesn't feel as drying as a more traditional matte lipstick might.  I do find my lips are on the dry side after wearing this for a few hours though, but no more so than with any other Revlon lip product, to be honest.  Is it just me that finds every Revlon formula leads to dry lips at the end of the day?

And finally, Enticing:

Almost precisely mid way between the original formula and the matte balm, the lacquer balm has more pigment than the original, but is more glossy than the matte, as you would expect.  I did find that the increased slip in the formula led to the colour bleeding over the course of wear, which I found super-annoying, but it is a lovely, bright clear red shade that I like a lot, but I won't wear it without liner ever again, which rather defeats the object of these being a fool-proof and simple to use product!

I still don't like the smell of the products - ironically, it still reads as dusty peppermint even after my nose issues - but the matte balms in particular are likely to become a handbag staple.

Best of all, they're almost always on 3-4-2  in Boots, and at 7.99 each, they're a bit of a bargain.  I think my favourite of these three is Striking, which one's yours?

The Fine Print: Purchases

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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Zelens Lip Enhancer and Lip Glaze in Rouge and Nude

I make no bones about my love of Zelens products. The fact is, expensive as they are, I've rarely been disappointed with anything I've tried from the range, and I was super-excited when I discovered Dr Lens was releasing makeup to go alongside his skincare range.  I've mentioned the foundation in passing before, but today I want to concentrate on the lip products.

Here we have two lipglazes, in Rouge (red) and "Nude", and the Lip Enhancer, which is essentially a lip balm with a PH sensitive pigment that reacts to the acidity in your skin to create your "ideal" lip colour.

But the Lip Glazes are what I really want to talk about (the Lip Enhancer is a bit of a gimmick to be honest, and I don't think it's worth £32 of your money for the same fluorescent pink lips you get from every other PH-sensitive "ideal" lip colour on the market, but it's a nice balm that aside) for they are fabulous.

Yes, they are a little on the sticky side, but what you have here is incredibly nourishing, cushiony colour product.  Handy for just chucking on in a hurry, not needing a precise application, I've even used them as a treatment on sore lips, and I've found that they are nothing short of magical on dry, peeling lips.  There is no scent to speak of, which is a relief.  They last about as long as you'd expect a lipgloss to, but the hydrating and conditioning properties last much longer than the colour does, which is lovely.  They feel more like a treatment than a gloss, and as such, they're gorgeous.  They're currently challenging Chantecaille as my all-time favourite formula of all-time ... which is saying something!

On the lips, the colour is sheer, but not unpigmented, here are my bare lips for comparison:

And here they are with Nude:

And with Rouge:

And finally with Lip Perfector:

Normally, Lip Perfector goes incredibly fuchsia on me, but this was after an hour of swatching 14 lip colours so I think my lips were too knackered to make it work properly on me today.

Rouge is a lovely bright and sheer red, which I love for simple look with a sweep of graphic liquid liner, and I pair nude (an unusual choice of colour at all for me, but the mix of mauve, taupe and a hint of purple in the tube makes it an easier wear for me than the usual beige/caramel "nudes") with a smokier eye look. Lip Enhancer I wear on the days I can't be bothered with makeup at all ...  I'm a big fan of the Lip Glazes, loving their emollient and soothing properties, and the colours are pretty and flattering, I can't recommend them highly enough.  The Lip Enhancer is a lovely balm with a gimmicky colour, so buy it if you like that kind of thing, but unlike the Lip Glazes, it's not quite as much of an essential.

Lip Glazes are £29 each, and are available from SpaceNK.  Lip Perfector is £32.

The Fine Print: Mixture of PR samples and personal purchases.

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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Clinique Colour Pop Lipsticks in Bare/Punch/Cherry/Love and Berry Pop

We've been lacking a bit in colour recently on Get Lippie, so I figured instead of Lipsticks of the Week, why not have a Week of Lipsticks?  So here we are, showing you some of my favourite lipsticks of the moment.

Clinique sent me a few of their latest Colour Pop collection recently, and they are mega pretty.  From l-r we have Bare Pop, Punch Pop, Cherry Pop, Love Pop and Berry Pop.  Not only are they bright and pigmented, they apparently are a melding of both lipstick and primer, designed to make the colours last longer on your lips.  I don't really believe in lip-primers, now I come to think of it, I find them drying and don't really add much to the whole lipstick experience, to be honest.  These lipsticks, however, are incredibly silky and soft on the lips.

Bare Pop

 

Punch Pop

Cherry Pop

Love Pop Don't drop a lipstick right before you photograph it, folks!

Berry Pop

Wear time is normal, but the formula is beautiful, pigmented and easily wearable, non-drying, these are really gorgeous lipsticks, and hey!  I love the packaging.

I like that the bottoms of the tubes match the colours in the bullets.  They're easy to apply, mostly giving full coverage in one or two passes, except the shimmery shades, which are a little sheerer:

Bare Pop

Punch Pop

Cherry Pop

Love Pop

Berry Pop

These are gorgeously nourishing lipsticks, with a beautiful light texture, and for £16 each, they're pretty reasonable, too.  They'll be available exclusively from Boots from 27th March, and nationwide from April.

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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Alpha H Instant Facial

This is a rather elderly bottle of Alpha H Instant Facial.  It's nearly empty, but I love it very much, and I shall be sad when it is gone.

Alpha H are the queens of glycolic acid, and their Liquid Gold product is - rightly - a cult, but I find it is a little too stimulating for my skin, so I don't use it very often these days.  Instant Facial is a lighter acidic spray designed to be used throughout the day for an immediate pick-me-up effect.

Personally, I prefer to use this as part of my cleansing routine as the acidic toner part of my routine, I spray a little onto a cotton wool pad and sweep over freshly cleansed skin, and then immediately follow with Serozinc and serum/oil, then moisturiser.  It gives me a light exfoliation effect, which is particularly noticeable if I've been neglecting my skin for a couple of days, and it does this without irritation, or too much tingling.

I find it an excellent addition to my collection of acidic toners, it is a little on the pricey side compared to Clarins exfoliating toner (less than £20), at £37 from Cult Beauty, but compared to my beloved Zelens PHA pads at £65, it's more of a bargain, I happily rotate Instant Facial with both of those.  Because of the spray, you use a fixed amount per use, and this product lasts and lasts and lasts, as you can probably tell from the scruffy state of my six-months+ old bottle.

What are your old but beloved products?

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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Josh Wood Blending Wand - Dark Brown

It's hard work being a brunette sometimes.  Well, if you're a brunette over the age of 35 or so, it is, anyway.  Yes, I'm talking about greying.  I have been going grey since I was 18, actually, and it has ever been a pain in the backside.  I'm incredibly lucky in that my hair colourist (Jack Howard, currently at Paul Edmonds) is a genius, but he's an incredibly busy one, and I don't get to see him as often as I'd like these days, so, in between visits I have to cover up my roots myself.  It's fun!*

I've written before about Colour Wow, which takes literally seconds to use, and I really like it, but I do also use the Josh Wood Blending Wand in dark brown for when I need a slightly longer-term solution.  The blending wands contain a weak hair dye which actually works as a stain on the white hair, and this blends your greys in almost seamlessly

To use, you "paint" your white roots with the applicator after shampooing (whilst your hair is still wet) then dry and style as usual, there's no need to rinse, or mess about with different processes, you literally paint it on and dry your hair.  I find the brush is a little fiddly, and prone to falling off in my thick and wiry hair, but in those circumstances, I tend to just apply direct from the bottle and rub it into the roots with my fingertips.  You will need to wash your hands pretty thoroughly afterwards though!

Ostensibly, the stain will last through a wash or two, as it is NOT a permanent dye,  but I have found that it will fade hugely after the first wash, needing a second application, but I've never tried to use it more than three shampoos in a row. However, I do have to admit that it did leave me with PINK roots after the first wash the first time I used it, but I rather liked the effect actually ... your mileage might vary though!  My roots haven't been pink since, but the fading effect is intense.

I've used this once or twice a month for the last six months or so, and there is still plenty left in the tube, so for £12.50 this is a bit of a bargain, albeit one that comes with considerable caveats.  You can find Josh Wood Blending Wands in the beauty sections of larger Marks & Spencer stores.

How big a problem are roots for you?

*For a given value of "fun", admittedly

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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Spring Fragrances with Elie Saab, Diptyque and DKNY

If you've been following my travails over on The Parosmia Diaries, then you'll know this post is a bit of a breakthrough - perfume reviews have necessarily been thin on the ground for Get Lippie over the last twelve months, but I think I have finally recovered enough of my sense of smell to offer at least a brief overview of some lovely fragrances that have crossed my radar over the last month or two.  So, as we swing into spring (at last!) here's my pick of the best warm fragrances to celebrate the passing of winter:

Elie Saab Resort Collection:

I love orange blossom, and orange blossom is the signature note of the entire Elie Saab range, which is an incredibly lovely, sheer and diaphanous range in the main.  Resort Collection, as well as being housed in one of the loveliest bottles this beauty blogger has in her entire collection, is a gloriously blossom-y scent, replete with fig, jasmine and frangipani.  To my nose it smells like sunbathing whilst wearing expensive suncream under orange trees in the spring.  Very lovely indeed.

Diptyque Florabellio

A powdery apple-blossom floral, with an intriguingly salty top note, and a slightly dark dry-down, this EDT is fresh without being too bright, soft and gentle and overall rather cheerful to wear.  It's a little more ladylike than I would normally wear - in fact, if this had been released this month instead of waiting till May to be on shelves, I'd have suggested it would be a fabulous Mothers Day present - it's delightful.

DKNY Delicious Delights

And speaking of delightful, DKNY have brought out their Delicious Delights range, which is a limited edition extension of the apple-themed Be Delicious range.  There are three scents, Cool Swirl, Dreamsicle, and Fruity Rooty.

All are fun, fruity and fresh.  Cool Swirl (green) has blueberry, violet leaf and coconut, Dreamsicle (orange - my favourite) has elements of orange, mandarin and raspberry, and Fruity Rooty (pink) has blackberry with hints of rose.  They are rather on the sweet side, which my new nose seems to appreciate, but they are also flirty and nice to wear.

So, there you go, not as in-depth as usual, but I'm hoping my nose will continue to improve so my reviews can too!  Happy Spring, peeps!


The Fine Print: PR Samples

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.


This post: Spring Fragrances with Elie Saab, Diptyque and DKNY 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