A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

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

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!

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?

Clinique are playing Secret Santa this week, so if you’re in need of an early festive treat, log on to Clinique website everyday this week for a little surprise.

Today’s  beauty treat is a free mini-set of best-selling eye essentials with any purchase over £30.  The set includes: High Impact Mascara, Quickliner for Eyes and High Lengths Mascara.  A really well put-together set that will give you dramatic eyes for the party season!

To get the party started on this offer, log on to the Clinique website and enter the offer code EYES during checkout with your £30+ order.

Don’t forget to check back on the website daily to see if any of the other offers are worthy of a place in your stocking!

There seems to be a general consensus that the Urban Decay Naked 2 Palette isn’t as cool toned as people were hoping…. in comparison to the first, and as a cool-toned girl myself, I’m sticking my head above the parapet to proclaim that they work nicely on cool-toned complexions.  Now, those first 4 shades in the palette (from left to right), are warm.  Undoubtedly.  But the rest, are certainly neutral enough to make them a flattering fit for my skintone.  My only major irritation with the Naked 2 Palette is the inclusion of Half Baked (again), it doesn’t suit me, and we’ve been there already.

I (like many other makeup fans), would be thrilled to see Naked 3 (yes, I’m going there already) filled with matte shades.  Urban Decay’s mattes are under-rated and a palette of matte neutrals would make such a great flanker to Naked 1 and 2.

As a 30 year old, I’m just not sure how much longer I’m going to be able to get away with this amount of shimmer on my eyelids. I’m hoping a FOTD will demonstrate the kind of shimmer you’ll get from the Naked 2 Palette and help you make an educated decision on whether you’ll be jumping all over this on release date or leaving well alone.

Verve on the lid  |  Tease in the crease  |  Blackout in the outer corner (and to line)  |  Bootycall to highlight

I’m also wearing the Naked Lipgloss which is included in the palette.  I don’t like this – it’s thicker than treacle, mintier than a glacier full of polos and doesn’t really serve any colour purpose.

The Naked 2 Palette will be released in the UK on 9th January 2012, priced at £36 and available from instore and online from Debenhams before rolling out to House of Fraser from February 6th.

Sometimes, you know you’re going to love something before you set eyes on it and when I received an email describing an organic lip balm, delicately housed in a real-life sea shell?  I felt the love immediately.

Upon arrival, I wasn’t disappointed – something that had such potential to be overly-delicate and a little bit flimsy actually feels quite robust.  Sure I wouldn’t wanna drop it on the kitchen floor from any kind of height but I can’t see much harm coming to it from being toted around in my handbag.

The Shell Lip Balm itself is lightweight and adds a nice sheen to your lips without any thickness or stickiness.  As a constant lipstick-wearer, I need something a little more intensive than this during the depths of Winter but I haven’t been able to resist whipping it out and using it at every opportunity regardless!  This is a balm that would be perfectly suited to anyone who needs some added moisturisation but dislikes that heavy, balm-y feeling.  It’s a really very, very comfortable wear.

There are four different shell varieties available: Tiger Crown (mine), White Frangipani, Mocha and Oriental Fan.  The shells are recycled after being washed-up on the shore and go through a stringent cleaning process.  The lip balm is certified organic and contains: Coconut Oil, Rosehip Oil, Beeswax, Lanolin, Jojoba Oil, Macademia Oil and Mango Seed Butter.  There is a faint coconut smell but no taste.

Priced at £12.99 each, they make fantastic gifts (you could even pass a chain through the catch and wear it as a necklace) – I’m smitten with mine and have gone all Pokemon about them, gotta collect ’em all!

Shell Lip Balm is available to buy online at http://www.shelllipbalm.co.uk – if you’re still trying to think of what to buy the person who has everything this Christmas, I’ve just solved that problem!

* press sample

If you’ve been around long enough to remember their Easter egg-stravaganza then you’ll already be familiar with the kind of fun and games Urban Retreat’s Beautique love to engage their customers in!

If not, let me give you a little bit of inside knowledge to one of the best treasure hunts around.

Log on to the Beautique website from 1pm every Friday up until Christmas and scour the pages like a mad woman (fella?) in an attempt to hunt down one of those lovely pressie boxes as shown in the image above.

Once  you’ve found one, add it to your basket and checkout as quickly as possible to claim the prize as your very own from a single penny!

A few of you lovely lot managed to scoop some goodies in the Easter treasure hunt so I hope you’ll be as successful this time round!

Good luck pressie hunters and let me know if you manage to bag yourself a prize!!