A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

This weekend is set to be the hottest of the year and with a bank-holiday rapidly approaching, you may forgive me for living life through a pair of rose-tinted spectacles at the moment. If you’re feeling as much “in the pink” as I am, you might appreciate these two fragrances to indulge your fervor for all things fuchsia.

Salvatore Ferragamo’s Signorina and Jo Malone’s (limited edition) Plum Blossom are lovely choices for Summer, they both wear delicately – employing some seriously fruity notes without ever becoming syrupy or cloying on the skin.

In the case of Signorina*, the Italian label’s latest scent is clearly aimed toward the younger market. The beautifully presented bottle is adorned with blush-coloured ribbons and a rose-gold lid, making it an unapologetically pink offering that should appeal to girly-girls of all ages.

Signorina opens with a juicy blackcurrant, lightly spiced with the standard pink pepper note that appears in many of the current mass-market perfumes. The voluptuousness quickly develops into something more skin-like as the florals come to the fore: jasmine, rose, and peony all combine to create a light, almost-floaty interpretation of what it must feel like to be simultaneously impossibly young and chic. On me, the scent wears close to the skin, as if grounded by the creaminess from the unexpected source of pannacotta. The creamy Italian dessert lends a softness and delivers the gourmand quality that contributes to the addictive characteristic that keeps my nose buried firmly in my wrist.

It reminds me somewhat of Dior’s Miss Cherie but I find this one more compatible with my skin chemistry and less cloying in this warm weather, it doesn’t project as loudly and feels slightly more elegant in it’s youthfulness.

Jo Malone’s latest limited-edition scent is already sold out online but still available in many stores nationwide while stocks last. Plum Blossom* is a greener interpretation of the same qualities found in Signorina. Not quite so playful in composition, it delivers a sweetness that will appeal to those who like their fruity florals to avoid the foodie notes whilst keeping sensuality at the fore. The florals up the ante, as you’d expect from the iconic British brand and with a base of sandalwood and white musk, Plum Blossom remains a clean and delicate fragrance from start to finish.

There’s something eternally romantic about blush hues and both scents make the perfect accompaniment to the wedding season.

* press samples

Whilst my inbox is currently being inundated with bronzing solutions for the current heatwave, I’m slathering on the SPF (broad spectrum of course) and shading myself courtesy of the nearest tree.  Whilst bronzed skin is undoubtedly beautiful, it always makes me feel rather conspicuous.  I simply don’t tan naturally… not at all, my family enjoy a long-running joke that focuses on the fact that I went to Australia to live for a while and returned home paler.

I’d like to say that I’m one of those porcelain-skinned types, milky white with a lit-from-within glow… but I’m best described as blotchy pink/white with more than my fair share of orange freckles.  Throw in a few thread veins and Kate Winslet, I ain’t.  Praise the lord for foundation and highlighter.

St. Tropez Skin Illuminator in Rose* is a highlighter that is perfect for us blue-veined types.  Generously packaged in a 50ml tube, it’s a great solution for holiday packing… you know, those rare times (unless you live in Essex) when it’s practically illegal to have a greater clothes to bare skin ratio.  It effortlessly dispenses a pink-toned sheen to emphasise sharp collarbones, chiselled cheekbones and shapely shins!

Non-greasy and buildable, the St. Tropez Skin Illuminator in Rose has a slight fruity scent which dissipates quickly once on the skin.  The packaging is simplistic but hygenic and reflects what I consider to be a very reasonable price point.  For a full 50ml of product, you’ll pay only £12.26.

You can see that the sheen it imparts is definitely cool-toned, which is what makes it far more natural-looking for us cool-skinned paleys than the more usual summer offers from cosmetic companies.  The above photo shows two layers of product to ensure that the camera picked up on the swatch.  It feels light-weight on the skin but I wouldn’t recommend it as a luminizing all-over type highlighter, this is definitely more for spot-highlighting.  I’ve also found that the formula is happy to be applied over foundation, important to me because it’s nearly always something I forget to do until AFTER I’ve applied my blush!

St. Tropez Skin Illuminator in Rose is available to buy online from st-tropez.com and Boots.com (where it’s currently only £12 AND on a 3for2 across selected ‘summer products’).

* press sample

Pizza is one of my (many) vices… hot, cold, hot then cold then warmed up again – however I eat it, I love it.  The spicier and more garlicky, the better – jalapenos are a must, I helpfully remind myself that spicy foods raise the metabolism, therefore burning fat more quickly no?  I excel at self-delusion.  When I first joined Weight Watchers, I read the most horrifying piece of information that my eyes had ever digested: one slice of stuffed-crust pizza is 10 points.  That’s a single slice… a single fucking slice, I’m only allowed 26 points a day!  I can hoover up a whole pizza (what, 8 slices?) in the time it takes my husband to work through one slice.

So pizza was off the menu then.  Except it so isn’t.

The pizza you see above scores an incredible 7 points.  That’s 7 points for the entire pizza.  I think we all need to take a moment….

…

…for those of you who don’t know follow Weight Watchers, we’re talking around 350kcal.

You don’t need to make your own pizza dough and it only requires about 10 minutes in the oven.  Here’s what you’ll need:

1 Warburtons Square-ish Wrap
1 tbsp Tomato Puree (I mix a tsp of garlic puree in too!)
Your choice of 0 point topping (onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomato, jalapenos)
50g “wafer” ham
Dash of Worcester Sauce/Tabasco/Balsamic Vinegar (whichever you prefer)
Sprinkling of Italian herbs
30g Cathedral City Light Mature Cheese (this is the only ‘light’ cheese I’ve found to melt properly)

I keep my wraps in the freezer and just take one out and cook it from frozen.  Spoon the Tomato Puree onto the wrap and spread evenly to the edges.  Top your “pizza base” with the ham, veggie toppings and Italian herbs before sprinkling the cheese over the top.  Finish off with a sprinkling of sauce before cooking it in a pre-heated oven at around 200 degrees celsius for around 10 minutes.

Serve with a side salad and feel ridiculously virtuous about it.

What is your biggest foodie vice and do you have a healthier alternative for it?

It takes a special kind of lady to rock certain styles – I’m not a special kind of lady, “speshul” maybe…

I’ve been eyeing up some pretty hair jewellery around the interwebs and wondering what it would take for me to take the plunge and invest in a pretty piece.  I think the answer lies somewhere near the bottom of the bottle of Malibu lurking in the fridge.  Yes, I’m uncool enough to still love a bit of Malibu!

Silver Wings ($40.00)  |  Wildfox Daisy Chain (£47.47)  |  Kyoto Moon-Kanzashi Geisha Hair Stick ($40.00)  |  Moustache Ear Cuff (£8.00)

Honestly? I can just imagine getting horribly tangled up in it all the time.  Perhaps it’s a trend better suited to those with effortlessly sleek locks that seemingly never frizz?

Me?  I’d turn my head too quickly and attach myself to a fucking kitchen cupboard.

Do you own and wear any hair jewellery?  Hair bands and combs don’t count – I’m talking proper barnet bling!

… you know what’s coming don’t you?

This is an M&S beauty hall.

I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist.

The press release is indepth but the highlights of the new M&S Beauty Halls (which will roll-out to 100 of their nationwide stores by Summer 2013) include:

~ a range of fragrances created for M&S exclusively by Lyn Harris (of Miller Harris fame)
~ a “virtual makeover” counter to experience different looks with a single photo
~ trained and impartial beauty advisers, with a “no-hard sell” ethos
~ External brands you can’t access easily on the high-street, including: Filorga, Skyn Iceland, and Comptoir Sud Pacifique
~ New/repackaged/reformulated M&S beauty ranges including: Hello Kitty (teen cosmetics), Pure Skincare (natural, eco line), and Formula (targeted skincare)

I just keep thinking how much fun must it be to go to work and choose which brands to stock? Gizza job!

 The new M&S beauty hall is currently debuting at the High Street Kensington branch with all products and new brands available to purchase online at marksandspencer.com

Fall-out free and less fussy than their loose powder counterparts, these new blushers from BareMinerals pack plenty of pigmentation without any of the faff.  Available in a wide variety of shades, the packaging is both simple and sleek, NARS fans will be familiar with the rubberised finish that sadly doesn’t stay neat and tidy for very long.  The blush palette comes complete with a brush (more on that later) and a generously sized mirror.

I took delivery of shade The Confession, which looks alarmingly warm and dark in the pan but swatches a neutral/warm rose-wood shade that should flatter most complexions.  The texture is smooth and feels as finely-milled as you’d expect from a brand who excel in powder products.  The blush offers ample colour in a single sweep for those of us who are particularly pale and delivers great blendability with no patchiness.

Unusually, I like the brush that comes housed in the palette.  I only tried it after finding myself on holiday, short of brushes and it works very nicely!  It’s loosely packed to ensure you don’t go all Bozo on your face with a single sweep, the hairs are soft and fan out delicately to create a natural ‘shape’ for application across the cheek area.  It’s all I use to apply it now!

I do love a good matte blusher and this one works well with a variety of looks – you can see that despite its warmth, I paired it successfully with a cool eye in the above FOTD photo.  It’s a workhorse shade with a reliable formula – I recommend checking out the shades next time you’re near a BareMinerals counter and be sure to SWATCH – I would never have plumped for such a strong looking shade without seeing how it looked on the skin!

BareMinerals READY Blushers** are available to buy now on counter and online, priced at £22 each

* psst – they’re currently cheaper at beautybay.com and escentual.com (swatch first, buy later?!)

** press sample

We all know that concealer is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal to create the illusion of a more well-rested complexion, it’s also the most misunderstood and mis-used of tools in our arsenal and the one product that I enjoy the biggest love/hate relationship with. But when is a concealer not just a concealer?

When Perricone MD debut their No Concealer Concealer of course! This new product launches next month online at perriconemd.co.uk and johnlewis.com, it’s priced at a none-too-shabby £37, so just what does it offer to justify that price tag?

Perricone MD’s No Concealer Concealer* builds upon the brand’s previous success: No Foundation Foundation, taking a fresh look at how our makeup interacts in the long-term with our skin. It promises the kind of multiple skin benefits that you’d expect from a high-end cosmeceutical line including:

~ Vitamin C Ester for brightening and collagen boosting
~ Hyaluronic Acid to boost skin’s natural moisture throughout the day and hep minimize wrinkles
~ Phospholipids to deliver essential moisture while creating a barrier to further protect the skin
~ Neuropeptides to address wrinkles, firmness and smoothness
~ Microcirculatory agents to help treat dark circles, making them less visible over time
~ Mineral-based, non-chemical sunscreen to protect against both UVA and UVB damage

It obviously makes sense to combine some of the most potent anti-aging ingredients into the products that spend the longest amount of time in direct contact with our skin and although this theory has often been employed in the form of foundation, less so when it comes to concealer and even more enticingly, this one works nicely in that most time-sensitive of areas, the eyes.

The packaging is unpretentious and simple, a self-assembly pump system that works well and allows full control over how much product you dispense. The brand recommend to dispense a single pump for use on both eyes, with any excess applied over other parts of the face that need concealing. I found this encouraged me to pile too much on in the eye area, which in turn, led to some settling into my fine lines. You really don’t need much at all to create a more even appearance. The formula is rich without feeling sticky and despite my dry skin, it left the delicate area feeling nourished throughout the day – that in itself, a bit of a miracle. I usually have to use the lightest of textures in this area to avoid settling and clumping and this one works well despite a heavier texture than I’d usually use.

I’d suggest dispensing half a pump, warming it between the ring fingers and first pressing it to an area of your face (other than the eye area) that needs concealing. Then move immediately to the eye area (without further concealing or blending) to press the product onto the dark circles, socket bones and inner contours.

You can see that the shade is fairly forgiving despite my pale skintone, unlike the No Foundation Foundation (which was too dark for me when swatched). It’s perhaps still a hint too dark to be ideal for the under-eye area but it works particularly well to conceal my redness across the bridge of my nose. I’ll leave you with a picture of the concealer applied on a foundation-less face. I think I applied it a touch too heavy in certain areas, and I’m sure that (as with most things), there’s a learning curve to get to grips with but I’m really impressed with how this both conceals and feels on my skin.

Perricone MD No Concealer Concealer SPF 35 is priced at £37 and will be available to buy online from perriconemd.co.uk and johnlewis.com.

* press sample

It’s not my blogging style to post new collections but I’m making a “sort-of” exception in this case. You see, I have a good amount of Boots points burning a hole in my purse and I wanted to gauge some opinion on whether any of these pieces are setting your makeup-loving hearts alight as they are mine?

I usually buy a few Chanel or Dior pieces from the holiday collections, helped along with those handy points but last year, I only bought Chanel Féérie (not even using my points!) and I’ve barely used it. I’ve lost my splurging confidence after being totally won over by the pretty rather than the usable – do you do that?

The above picture shows a few of the pretties from the Chanel Summer 2012 Collection and I’m lusting after one of the bronzers (Sable Beige 907 – the one without the pink) and that eye duo (Sable-Émouvant) – I can’t go far wrong with those right?  I think I’m leaning more toward picking up the Sable-Émouvant eye duo and the Summer blusher (Sheer Summer Glow) from Burberry, have you seen that one?  If you’re as pale as me – I think you should take a look!

The Chanel Summer 2012 Collection will be available nationwide from Friday.

Have you got any high-end beauties on your Summer radar?

Taking a break from the Summer shades for a moment to dazzle you with Butter London’s Black Knight – a veritable nebula of twinkle on yo’ nails.

I feared that The Black Knight wouldn’t live up to my expectations, so many times have I been disappointed by a glitter but this one dodges that particular bullet.

The glitter sits proudly on the nail bed without sinking into the base colour and a single layer of top coat is enough to stop my teeth from grinding in protest against a gritty finish.  Fully opaque in three coats, it’s what one might technically call “a bobby dazzler”.  There, I’ve just come up with Butter London’s next shade name.

Butter London The Black Knight is available to buy online from PowderRooms, priced at £11.95

I don’t do many ‘haul’ posts, I don’t think they’re quite as popular in the blogosphere as they used to be?  Taken over by beauty box posts perhaps?

Anyway, I’ve been having a bit of a high-street love-in this past week and in the town where I’m currently staying, I’m limited to a Boots and a Superdrug – the Superdrug is a good ‘un, the Boots store massively blows but I did spot a good discounted section at the back that I didn’t have a chance to check out.  My LUSH purchases came from my local store in Southampton just before I drove up North. Um, that’s about it really – here’s what’s prompted me to open my purse this week!

When you’ve got a full fringe, dry shampoo is your friend and I thought I’d give Batiste Cherry a spin, I usually go for the original, dark, or tropical but I think this one is my new favourite.  I’m a massive fan of Bourjois Healthy Mix Foundation and surprised myself when I realised that I hadn’t given the Healthy Mix Serum version a go – again, this is a big hit with me (so far).  I think it suits my dryer skin even better and gives a slightly more translucent coverage.  The only gloss that I’ve ever repurchased is BarryM’s Lip Gloss in Toffee, it’s a wonderful colour with a pretty amount of shimmer and a non-sticky texture, I love it!

As for my LUSH dabble, I picked up another holy grail in the form of Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter, it’s the one I keep in my handbag and I generally alternate between this and CND’s Solar Oil which I use immediately after painting my nails.  I was sent a bottle of LUSH 9 to 5 Cleansing Lotion a few weeks ago and whilst I’ve been enjoying using it, it hasn’t set my world alight you know?  I’m not really expecting LUSH Ultrabland to either, but I wanted to try another cleanser to discover the differences and to see which one I lean towards in terms of formula, as they’re both quite different.  Finally, I picked up a bath bomb for Leila – yes, it’s Space Girl.  Yes, it contains copious amounts of glitter.  No, I didn’t have a say in the selection and yes, I will be the one left cleaning the bath.

What was the last beauty product you snapped up?

Continuing on the Spring/Summer Butter London parade is Disco Biscuit – a hot pink jelly with iridescent blue flashes courtesy of a sprinkling of micro-glitter.  This jelly finish is my favourite kind, soft and squishy without being too sheer – four coats gives enough coverage to please this opaque-loving polish fan.

Application wasn’t too taxing, a streaky first coat soon smoothed out with subsequent layers.  I really didn’t think I’d like this before applying it, some of the swatches I’d seen made me think I was going to have to put up with that slightly messy-looking finish that semi-sheer shades deliver but this builds beautifully to achieve just the look you want from super-sheer to fully opaque.  It would also make a beautiful layering shade if you’re keen for a little experimentation.

Butter London Disco Biscuit is available to buy online from PowderRooms, priced at £11.95

I usually blog my food posts on a Friday (a.k.a food friday!) but this week has been all over the place and I’m currently in the North East for a fortnight visiting family.  Subsequently, I’m limited with what I can blog – it’s quite alright to stand in my own house taking a billion FOTD / nail pictures / swatches but quite another looking like a crazy in someone else’s house!  Until I can sneak away somewhere where I’m not overlooked, I’m blogging some older photos that are left-over on my hard-drive – bear with me!

Since I’ve been doing Weight Watchers, I’ve amazed myself at how devious I’ve become when it comes to discovering ways to stuff my face (with the most amount of food) for the least amount of points.  I’m not sure that this is truly helpful in the long run (portion control anyone?) But it’s keeping me on the plan day-to-day, so I won’t knock it too much!

My favourite ‘find’ (courtesy of minimins forum) are the Warburton’s Square-ish Wraps…

They make fantastic wraps, pannini alternatives and pizza bases – they’re super versatile, are a little more filling than a normal wrap and “weigh” in at only 4 points a-piece – roughly the equivalent of two slices of bread.  Before I discovered these, I thought pizzas were off the menu for good!  Hallelujah for square-ish wraps!

One of our weekly meals is a Tuna Melt, served up with a big side salad.  It’s obviously not the most complicated meal in the world, but it’s both satisfying and quick to rustle up!

You’ll need:

1 tin of tuna in brine (I only buy tuna steak, chunks are for cats)
2 tbsp light/extra light mayonnaise
1 small onion, finely chopped
30g cheese (I use full-fat version because low-fat doesn’t melt properly)
black pepper

Combine the drained tuna, onions, black pepper, and mayonnaise in a bowl.  Spread the ‘filling’ over half of one of the square-ish wraps before scattering the cheese ontop.  Fold the wrap in half and either place under a hot grill or use a panini press.  I love my press, healthy toasted sandwiches!

Grill/toast until the cheese has melted and serve with a side salad.  I’m a sucker for a splodge of chilli sauce with mine, don’t tell anyone.

The entire meal comes in at a very respectable 10 Pro Points, less if you use low-fat cheese.

What are your favourite filling-but-low-fat meals?