A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

I love a good bargain and this W7 polish, purchased for the princely sum of £1.95 is a very good cheapie indeed!  Sure, it’s sheer (4 coats minimum) and it stinks so badly that I was worried my husband would phone NHS Direct for advice on solvent abuse.  But look, for less than £2 – it’s a pretty, pretty subtle duochrome.

Wear was great, I often find this with sheerer polishes… perhaps a side effect of those multiple thin coats?  Either way, I have no complaints on chipping or any of that nonsense.

I purchased W7 Metallic Mars online from www.nailpolishdirect.co.uk, priced at £1.95 – I believe that it’s a discontinued shade so don’t hang around if you fancy adding it to your collection!

If you’ve ever wanted to explore the world of Asian base makeup, now would be a rather magnificent time to indulge.

This limited edition Kate Spade for RMK Base Make-Up Kit includes everything you need for picture perfect skin this season with travel-sized offerings of RMK’s Cleansing Milk, Creamy Soap, Skintuner Soother, Creamy Polished Base and (practically legendary) Creamy Foundation.

All contents are housed in this extremely covetable silver vanity case bearing the Kate Spade logo and attention to detail.

Available from RMK counters nationwide, priced at £55.00

* press sample

It’s your last chance to log on to www.beautybloggers.org and place your bids on some wonderful items that have been donated across the world from bloggers and brands alike in the support of Doctors without Borders.

If you’re looking to create the perfect red lip this Winter, look no further than my auction for a MUFE Rouge Artist Intense Lipstick #42 and Dior Lip Plumper.

No, really… bid on the lot for chrissake, it’s only on $45 and there’s free worldwide postage!

Whatever goodies catch your eye on the site, please bid now and bid high, I won’t nag again – I’ll just kneecap you like a proper charity mugger on Oxford Street.

 Fanks! x

Andrea Fulerton Nail Boutique have expanded their popular line of nail products with a set of ultra-cute glitters encased in little ‘puff’ tubes… let me tell you a bit about them…

Four shades of glitter that are designed to be ‘puffed’ onto a wet nail… the design of the ‘pen’ is supposed to afford directional coverage, giving you the ability to do cool things like create half-moons and glitter tips.

Frankly, I’d do a better job at creating a precision design if I snorted the glitter up my nose and sneezed it onto my nails.

The actual glitter is beautiful!  Fine, super-sparkly and not even too gritty… but the whole puff system is just massively flawed.  When I first squeezed the tube to activate the puff, nothing happened.

So of course… I squeezed a little harder, and the harder I squeezed, the more my eyes slitted in anticipation of a puff that would put a mushroom cloud to shame.  The anticipation damn near killed me, but nothing came out.  I recomposed myself, by which time my nail was of course, too dry to be of much use.

Eventually… I got a puff – the most anti-climactic moment of my life.  A splodge of glitter about half a centimetre away from where I’d wanted it placed.

Glitter…

Ultimately, these are beautiful nail glitters with a really awful delivery system that just doesn’t work well enough to create any kind of precision effect.  You may aswell just get a pot and dip your nails in that way.

Andrea Fulerton Glitterati Nails are priced at £10 available to buy at Superdrug.  Yano, if you really want to.

* press sample

Last month, I attended a ByTerry event to showcase the French brand and in particular, two new foundations that have hit the counters recently.

Sheer-Expert and Cover-Expert are the two new formulas from ByTerry’s creator Terry de Gunzburg.  As you may have guessed from their names, the major difference between the two are the coverage that they offer.

According to the brand…

Sheer Expert provides adjustable coverage, smoothes and plumps features and dims imperfections and signs of fatigue.  The natural satin finish adjusts and blends into your natural skin colour to reveal a perfect complexion with a sheer effect.

Cover Expert corrects all imperfections and flaws (including dark circles, freckles (flaw?!?!) wrinkles, fine lines or expression lines) while immediately lifting, smoothing and illuminating.  The matte satin formula is undetected on skin and provides an illuminated, unified, smooth skin tone.

Priced at £44 each for 35ml, they’re as you would expect, priced for the luxury end of the market but unlike a lot of their luxury counterparts, the range is impressively inclusive with a full 12 shades from the lightest to darkest skin shades available.

I was given a tube of the Cover-Expert foundation, after being matched to #4 Rosy Beige and have been trying it out over the past month.  I have to say, it’s been a difficult month for a foundation to be tested on my skin… adjusting to the central-heating coming on has cause all manner of dryness and irritability, so this foundation has really been up against it, so to speak.

It’s rose-scented (as is much of the ByTerry lineup) and has a distinct silicone feel to the formula… which isn’t surprising when you look at the top three ingredients listed: Cyclopentasiloxane, Aqua and Dimethicone.  This does give a good, smoothing and softening effect over my imperfections but doesn’t play too well with my skin dryness.  I have to give this foundation a well-moisturised base to avoid the dreaded flakies – but to its credit, it does behave well as long as I prep my skin adequately.

The shade is a wonderful match, which is surprising as I never have to go as high as a #4 in anything usually!  Pale girls, check this range immediately.

As for the coverage… I’d actually describe this as a little less than full.  It’s not in the same league as something like Estee Lauder Double Wear, my benchmark for wearable full coverage!  The ByTerry Cover-Expert foundation is a medium-to-full coverage which is fine for wearing during the daytime.  It reduces the redness around my nose without obliterating it or preventing my natural skin texture to show through.

I also find that it makes excellent use of light reflection, despite a matte finish – I feel that the hollows under my eyes are softened thanks to some clever light trickery – something which we all know Terry is notoriously good at (hello Touche Eclat!).

If you’re normal or even oily-skinned – you may find a perfect foundation partner with this new high-tech foundation from ByTerry.  Me?  Well, it makes me work a little harder than I’d like… but the result is worth it and this may well come in to its own once the weather gets a little warmer.  It’s a keeper, I’ll let you know if it’s a repurchas-er!

Sheer-Expert and Cover-Expert are available to buy now from SpaceNK, priced at £44 for 35ml and available in 12 shades.

* press sample

I was mooching on the Boots website late at night (as you do) and came across an interesting basket configuration that would give back 2000 Boots Advantage Card points on a £32.97 spend.  That’s equivalent to £20 back on your card for future frivolous purchases.

It goes something like this (click to enlarge)…

Also take note that you get not one, but TWO free Origins GWP (gift with purchases).

Of course, if you’ve got no use for this stuff, don’t get all excited about it.  It’s like those people who bought a billion Terrys Chocolate Oranges from Tesco when there was a price glitch for like 30p each… only to realise once the dust had settled that they still ended up spending £50 on chocolate they didn’t really want.

I just thought I’d give a heads up incase you know someone who might fancy a little set of cosmetic brushes as a stocking filler (there’s also an eyeliner brush) or maybe just someone who has particularly hairy legs.  Whilst of course, you pocket the £20 for a later splurge.

Happy Christmas Shopping!!

The most important thing that you need to know about this is that it’s currently on offer at half price in Sainsburys.  There’s also a bigger-sized one that was priced up at £20 down from £40 when I passed the shelf earlier this week.

Sadly, I don’t have the details on that one so will concentrate on the one pictured below which is a smaller option currently priced at a ridiculously good £7.50 (regularly £15.00).

The set contains:

Tropical Blooms Moisturising Shower Gel (175ml)
Tropical Blooms Softening Body Cream (50ml)
Tropical Blooms Nourishing Hand Cream (50ml)
Spa Getaway Gentle Cleansing Wipes 25 wipes
Body Polisher
Travel Bag

As a sister brand to Elemis, the supermarket-priced range is receiving some rave reviews across the blogosphere, one of my favourites comes from the lovely Yinka over at VexintheCity.  I haven’t picked anything up yet, but she has me lemming the Amber range like a woman possessed.

Have you tried any products from Mandara Spa?

Of course you do, ‘cos after all – between the turkey, stuffing, crackers, mince pies, pringles, pigs in blankets, Quality Street, KP Nuts, trifle… sorry, where was I?  Oh yeah, between all that festive food fare, Mr. T is gonna be raking it in from us – time to get a little something back!

Log on to the Tesco Your Beauty Facebook page and take their new beauty seasonal survey which focuses on our ever-changing skincare needs now that Winter is upon us.

There’s 2500 free beauty products up for grabs, so plenty for all – at least until it gets posted on MoneySavingExpert that is!

Talking of turkeys, don’t forget to sweep your moisturisers down your necks and decolletage… Wha’? I’m just sayin!

As we get older, makeup plays a great part in improving certain aspects of our appearance that mother nature can sometimes treat with a little less kindness than she ought.  We develop an increse in pigmentation, skintone becomes less even and let’s not dwell for too long on the dreaded loss of firmness.  Everything heads south a little futher than we’d like and a bad night will reflect 100x heavier on our complexions than on those in their 20s.

Which is why, in such a saturated makeup video market, it’s a pleasure to see makeup-supremo Mary Greenwell team up with the legendary Jo Fairley to create a set of makeup masterclass videos on High50.com, a website devoted to featuring content aimed at those over the age of 50.

There seems to be so many rules and mysteries surrounding what one shouldn’t do when it comes to makeup and reaching a certain age but less guidance on the types of things that really benefit a more mature skin or personality.  I’m really looking forward to future installments in the masterclass series, but for now, have a look at the first installment where Mary Greenwell talks about how to achieve the perfect base on older complexions.

I love the way Mary talks with such passion and enthusiasm about her craft but I do wish the video showed a little more of the actual application and finished result. I have to say though, I’m loving the look of that new Chanel foundation which I’m assuming is the new Perfection Lumiere and I hope the UK gets the palest pink-toned shade this time.

A new masterclass will be released weekly and you can view them over at High50.com

What do you think? Are there enough makeup tutorials out there on the web already or do you think this nicely fills a niche in the market?  Will you be watching?

Let’s have some festive nail candy!

China Glaze Love Marilyn from the Eye Candy 3-D Glitters Collection is a bonafide contender to be my Christmas Day nail polish.  Does anyone else meticulously plan their Christmas Day manicures?  It’s a little bit of a Christmas Eve tradition of mine to super-bling it up in honour of the big day!

I’m thinking I might wear it as a french tip though over a red cream (something like Butter London Come To Bed Red).

The above photo shows 3 coats for a full coverage over a bare nail.  Removal is a total pig and I did get a fair bit of chipping from this one despite a top coat.  But you know, it’s easier to forgive these things when it’s OMGGLITTERREDCHRISTMASPOLISH.

I bought this on eBay from the U.S. but if you wanna buy on these shores, you can nab it from www.nailpolishdirect.co.uk priced at £5.95

Do you have your Christmas Day mani sorted out?

A couple of years back, I stayed at the Les Trois Rois hotel in Basel, the penthouse suite no-less and there’s a video of me (Mr. L keeps threatening to YouTube it), running around the suite (it’s not pretty – I was 6 months pregnant), all breathless and getting hugely excited (as only a peasant would) over the fruit displays, cinema screen TV and private rooftop jacuzzi.

But the thing that got me squealing most of all in the video were the 5 bathrooms, each filled with full-size Molton Brown products.  Infact, so decadent was it that I didn’t steal a single bottle to take home – it just felt too naughty.  I still curse that angel sitting on my shoulder – I could have at least decanted a bit from each bottle right?  Clearly, I’m only devious with the benefit of hindsight.

Which is why I would be rather pleased were I to receive this set of Molton Brown shower gels for Christmas.  Take that stupid angel!

The Spectrum Set contains 6 x 100ml bath & shower gels which include the scents: energising seamoss; relaxing yuan zhi; travel-reviving cempaka; re-charge black pepper; warming eucalyptus and invigorating suma ginseng.

Priced at £36 and available to buy online from moltonbrown.co.uk

Do you steal hotel toiletries?

I found this little article over on beautypress.com and it made me smile (and dig out all my lipsticks for a bit of self-analysis).  What does the shape of your lipstick tip say about you?

Honestly, if I was having a peek in someone’s makeup bag… found a lipstick, wound it up and saw a tip like #1… I’d move the hell away from the owner.

Me?  I’m a #4 – I just keep ’em in the shape I buy them! But, I’m nothing like the personality described.  Infact, if you wrote down the opposite of every adjective used to describe a #4-er, you’d get closer to me.  My Nan however, was an absolute #3.  I used to marvel at her perfectly rounded lipsticks… and the description, well it describes her so well it’s a little bit frightening!

What are you – and does the description fit with your personality?