A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

Another humdinger of a polish today with W7’s duochrome delight that is Metallic Venus. A gorgeous purple/blue combination that sings on the nail and doesn’t do to badly in the bottle either!

This one is less sheer than the Metallic Mars I showed you last week, fully opaque in three coats with no application issues.  Again, I paid £1.95 for this shade, bargain of the year I reckon.

W7 Metallic Venus is available to buy online from www.nailpolishdirect.co.uk, priced at £1.95 – I believe that you may also be able to get these in Savers? (thanks Nargis)

This striking pewter polish is from the Orly Birds of a Feather collection that was released for this Autumn/Winter.  It’s a beautiful grey with silver flecks that gives it a stunning metallic effect without the usual brushstroke issue that actual metallic polishes present.

Fully opaque in two coats with absolutely no application issues, this is a cracking polish for Autumn/Winter and one that I recommend you have in your collection.  Flawless.

Orly Sea Gurl is available to buy online at BeautyBay.com, priced at £6.95

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I’m not generally a fan of jelly nail polishes… they have to be quite special to turn my head. I like a nod to a jelly finish, infact, one of my favourite Butter London polishes has a slight jelly edge (Come to Bed Red) but in general, I’ll take a creme finish any day.

Orly Fowl Play from the Autumn/Winter Birds of a Feather collection contains a myriad of multi-colour flake, glitter and sparkle in a purple jelly base.  I love the razz but am just not digging that base which always looks kinda… unfinished to my eye.

The simple answer is to layer it over a cream polish, which is exactly what I’ve been doing… just one coat over a black looks incredible but for the sake of swatching, I’m showing it to you in it’s 3-coat glory over a bare nail.

Orly Fowl Play is available to buy online from BeautyBay.com, priced at £6.95

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If you’re still searching for a perfect gift for that more discerning member of the family *cough* (Mum) *cough*, you should point your browser in the direction of Timothy Han, purveyor of luxury candles.

Free from petrochemicals, genetically modified ingredients, herbicides or pesticides – these all-natural fragrant fancies are made from a carefully-chosen blend of pure essential oils, with no chemical additives or boosters.

I love the sound of Tobacco & Jasmine which ticks all the right boxes for a classy winter-warmer without going down the traditional gourmand route for Christmas home-scenting.

Each candle is hand-blended with a soy base and offers around 50 hours of burn time.  Luxury rarely comes cheap, and these are reassuringly expensive – at least, enough to keep you in the good books for a little while longer!

Timothy Han Candles are available to purchase online at www.timothyhan.com, priced at £38 each.

Christmas is well and truly kicking my arse at the moment.  I’m snowballing out of control with work deadlines, family commitments, self-imposed pre-christmas goals and other random stuff like finding time to sleep.  Get the violin out, infact… better make it a cello.

I’m not the kind of person to follow the above statement up with a quip like “…but it’s good to be busy!!!!”, cos it’s not – it actually f-in sucks to realise that the last time you vegetated infront of YouTube was well over a month ago.  It sucks even more when you look into the near future and can still only see STUFF.  Like a big, blankety blizzard of crap that threatens to engulf and swallow you whole.

Merry Christmas by the way….

So, what this means is that posting may be a bit thin on the ground over the next couple of weeks.  I’m scheduling in posts now and there’s a LOT of nail posts going up.  If you’re a blogger, you may be smiling wryly to yourself right now because as most beauty bloggers know… a NOTD is the post that gets thrown up when you’re too knackered to write an indepth review.  HERE.  LOOK.  PRETTY.  NAILS.

No disrespect to nail bloggers btw, your shit rulez ‘cos you do comparison swatches and all that actual USEFUL stuff, whereas I just go “oooh look nail polish!”

Now, don’t actually feel sorry for me… because I’m going on a Spa break tomorrow with VexintheCity (woohoo!)  Admittedly, we check in at 2pm and will be gone by 10am the following morning, and I have to drive like a billion miles there and a billion miles back.  And then when I get back — ON THE SAME DAY — I have to pack to go away again with the family for 4 days and then get back on Christmas Eve and cook a meal for 7 that evening and a meal for 8 the following day.

Has that cello arrived yet?

Ok, I’m shuttup now.

How are your Christmas(es) shaping up?  Ready to replace the turkey for your own head in the oven yet?

How magnificently cute are these?

Not only cute, but pretty darn affordable too at £7-a-piece.  Keep the packaging as a tree decoration whilst bubbling up the contents (a 3-in-1 shampoo, shower gel & bubble bath) in your bathroom.

Choose between: Gingerbread Girl, Snow Angel and Peppermint Bark – but be quick because Philosophy Christmas sets are always in high demand and usually sell out pretty quickly.

Available to buy instore at Boots who are also currently offering 1000 points when you buy 3 or more selected Philosophy

We’re on that final stretch to Christmas now, dig deep and keep going!

To help you on your way, here’s another Jurlique giveaway…

Today’s prize is a set of FOUR delightful Jurlique Hand Creams in: Rose, Jasmine, Lavender and Citrus.

If these don’t keep your cuticles happy this Winter, I don’t know what will!

Want to win Jurlique Hand Care Essentials gift set, worth £48?!

You do?  Excellent!  Get this question right and you’ll be in with a chance of winning…

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Which plant on the Jurlique ingredient’s page is known for producing fruits with the highest Vitamin C content in the plant kingdom?

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T&C
1. Entry open to UK residents only.
2. One winner will be picked at random from all correct entries.
3. Lipglossiping.com is the sole promoter of this competition.
4. One entry per email address please.
5. Competition closes on Tuesday 22nd December 2011 at 23.59 GMT.
6. Winner will be notified within 5 days of the close of the competition.

If you have any young women in your life, I’m fairly confident of this gift’s ability to make them squeal with delight.  A special Christmas Limited Edition Thierry Mugler Angel perfume with the iconic star-shaped bottle transformed into a bracelet.

Look at me modelling it like I should be on QVC!  You should probably know that my wrists just fit the bracelet… so this is definitely aimed toward either a younger, or less food-loving market… and pretty as it undoubtedly is, I’m not ready to give up my tin of Quality Streets for it just yet.  Maybe I could use it as a benchmark — I should try it on daily, and when it doesn’t fit anymore, I know it’s time to hand back the tin.

As for the scent… Angel is renowned for its notorious love/hate divide and I’m split right down the middle because I completely pinch-my-nose hate the chocolate-y, gourmand opening but adore the drydown and resulting warm sexiness that lingers for a very long time indeed.

The Christmas Limited Edition Thierry Mugler Angel with Bracelet is available to buy nationwide, priced at £51.50 for 25ml (EdP) or £66.50 for 50ml (EdP).

Are you an Angel fan?

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Sparkle sparkle went the fairy atop the Christmas tree – gently dazzling all those who looked upon her beauty.  That’s what I want to do, I want to shine… it’s my turn!  Godammit Mummy, you promised meeeeee!

And so, it happened that I was shopping with LongTallAlly late last month, and ‘cos she’s on a self-imposed spending ban that seems to be lasting her ENTIRE life, she did what all women do… she fully enabled me into this purchase of the Chanel Poudre Universelle Libre in Féérie just to make herself feel better about not being able to buy anything.  Bitch.

Actually, that’s not entirely true, because tradition dictates that I must buy something from each Chanel Holiday collection.  It’s a new tradition, do you like it?  And this is what caught my eye with it’s soft pink powder, finer than baby lanugo – it shimmered in the pot and called to me, more siren than féérie to be honest.

Well hello!  You’ve got more glitz and glitter than a high street filled with nothing but Claire’s Accessories.  It’s not that I don’t like you Feerie, I do… I’m actually a little bit in awe of your rose-gold beauty, but I just don’t think I can wear you without a matching creosote tan and quickstep outfit.

Can you see the glitter?  Can you?  CAN YOU?!?!  Don’t say no.

When I first applied Féérie, I knew it was going to be glittery… but I honestly thought, that as a secret glitter-lover, I could work it.  Truthfully, I just keep waiting for someone to try and helpfully remove a piece of glitter from my face before realising that I’ve actually bathed, rolled and gargled with it.

So, to be fair… it’s not you – it’s me.  Transport me to the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool and cast me among the stars, I’ll come back with a trophy, hell, I’ll replace the discoball and be brighter and better than any other in the land.

I love you Féérie and I’ll wear you in secret, when I don’t need to leave the house.  Maybe I’ll dust you over my decolletage… but truthfully, we know I won’t.  Who dusts their decolletage for God’s sake, I mean really?  How many times have you done that this year?  Enough to warrant a £31.50 purchase?  No, me neither.

Chanel Poudre Universelle Libre in Féérie is available on counter, priced at £31.50 – *le sigh*

Perhaps the ultimate offering from the Boots Star Gifts this year is the Soap & Glory Big Splendour set which, from tomorrow, will be slashed to better than half price.

The set includes the following Soap & Glory bestsellers:

Clean On Me™ Creamy Clarifying Shower Gel – 500ml
The Righteous Butter™ Body Butter – 300ml
Pulp Friction™ Body Scrub – 300ml
Face, Soap & Clarity™ Fresh Facial Wash – 150ml
25 Off Your Face™ Cleansing Wipes
Heel Genius Foot™ Cream – 125ml
Hand Food Hand™ Cream – 125ml
Mist You Madly™ Fragrant Body Spray – 250ml
Sexy Mother Pucker™ Lip Plumper In Candy Gloss – 7ml
Calm One, Calm All™ Bubble Bath – 500ml

From tomorrow, the price will be £25 (was £60) and the offer will run until Friday, 24th December.

Stocks are going to fly off the shelves, so if you know a S&G fan who would love one of these under their Christmas Tree – please avoid potential disappointment by jumping on this offer quickly.

Eat well, look good and smell great are my commandments for Christmas.  Eat well can be resolved by stuffing your face with a few extra mince pies, look good?  Easy – just pile on enough makeup (artfully of course), to conceal the cracks on the moon.

As for smelling great, well you could always ask Father Christmas (not Santa, we don’t say Santa in my house) for this Luxe Bath Essentials set from NEOM.  The scent is Refresh — an invigorating Sicilian Lemon with Fresh Basil combination that manages to be delicious without being foody!

Included in the two-piece set is all you need to turn your bathroom into a mini-spa.  Lock the door — deadbolt the bugger if a family member has had a curry in the past 48hrs — and pour a couple of capfuls of the bath oil into the tub.  Light the candle, relax and luxuriate whilst imagining yourself a thousand miles away on a hillside lemon orchard.  Screw reality, just don’t drown.

NEOM’s Refresh: Luxe Bath Essentials set is available to buy online at a currently reduced price of £39.00 – visit their website for more details about their range of luxury organics.

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Brrrr, wrap up warm – it’s a cold one here today!