A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

My final polish from the Urban Decay Summer of Love Nail Set.  I don’t know what took me so long to give this one a spin… look how beautiful it is!

It’s golden without being brassy… bronze without being orange.  It’s quite hard to describe.  A metallic finish that looks beautifully smooth on the nail.  I wasn’t expecting this to suit me, but it suits me very well.

3 coats to achieve a full, opaque finish.  I think this may be my favourite from the set.  I’m truly surprised by how much I love this one!  Longevity on this was also the best… 5 days before I even saw tip wear.  That’s pretty amazing no?

Ugh, I die when I look at that picture… it captures it well… how can it be so metallic and bronzed yet understated.  If I could buy this in a large size bottle, I would.

I’ve attached links to the other polishes from the set including the overview… if you haven’t seen them already – check ’em out!

Urban Decay Summer of Love Nail Kit – Overview
Aquarius NOTD
Magic Bus NOTD
Hashbury NOTD
Woodstock NOTD
Love Love Light NOTD
Psychedelic Sister NOTD
Shine On NOTD

Thanks so much to each and every one of you who entered the Beauty Blender Giveaway which was kindly sponsored by Just Beauty Direct.

The correct answer was of course: The Daily Telegraph!

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And the 3 lucky readers to bag a super-duper Beauty Blender each are…

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Anne (abrit@xxxxxx.com)

Kimberley (Kimberley.Philpotts@xxxx.com)

Rebecca (nailsnailsetc@xxxxxxxxxx.com)

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With nearly 450 entries, I have never in my life wished so hard that I could give each of you a Beauty Blender. Commiserations to those who weren’t lucky this time round , but never fear – I have another giveaway coming up later today.

I’ll email the winners directly this evening, so if your name is up there and you haven’t heard from me by tomorrow – please get in touch ASAP!

Let me give you a quick rundown of The Body Shop event I attended a couple of weeks ago… I’ll point out a few new product highlights, but the full reviews will come soon!

Cupcakes and makeup, it doesn’t get much better than this!  8 eye colours, 4 face products… all baked and very pretty indeed!

Superfluous… but look what Cosmetic-Candy made me!

She presented it to me really sweetly, but then turned nasty.  “Eat it then”… “Go on, I MADE IT for you”.  Proper sinister like….

I didn’t want to stuff my face with cake it infront of all my blogging peers!  Can you SEE how many Smarties the bitch piled on it?  It’s totally clear to me that she just wanted to sabotage my street cred and watch me throw smarties all over myself and the floor whilst looking like a greedy fat bitch infront of everyone.

When she wasn’t looking, I hid it behind a bottle of shampoo.

Chase Aston worked his magic on two delightfully beautiful models.  Here he is, demonstrating one of the new Bronzers from the Baked to Last summer collection.

Such amazing skin!

The Baked to Last Lineup…

I’ve already vented my spleen on the new Body Shop Baked to Last Eye Colours…. they don’t do it for me at all.

But the blushes and bronzers?  A different story altogether.  I’m really enjoying using them.  I’m writing my review now, but it’s still in draft… watch this space!

New Haircare!

Yes!  The Body Shop’s beloved haircare range is getting a revamp with a view to being more ECO Friendly… this means, no silicones, colourants or parabens – thereby protecting aquatic life from our toxic haircare that we flush down the drains daily.  Also coming soon will be new Hair Butters, intense nourishment built along the same lines as their current top sellers, the Body Butters!

The ever-popular Vitamin C range will have to squeeze up and make some room for these new inclusions!

New additions include: Eye Reviver Duo (double ended wand for instant pick-me-ups!), Skin Radiance Capsules, Skin Radiance Powder Mix (super innovative) and Microdermabrasion.

It was a lovely afternoon and good to hear about and discover all the new things that The Body Shop are planning to roll out over the next few months.  I’ll be back with further reviews on the products very soon!

Givaudan, the worlds most respected fragrance manufacturer has released an iPhone App unimaginatively titled: iPerfumer.  It’s for the iPhone?  Better stick a small “i” in at the beginning of the name then *yawn*.

Having said that, I had barely finished scrolling to the bottom of the press release before I’d scooped up my iPhone and zoned in on the App Store.  Combine my iPhone geekery with an undying fascination for the perfume world and it was downloaded and installed faster than a fat kid at a cake buffet.

Now, despite my fascination in perfumes and scents… I’m a total n00b.  I’m clueless, which is great… ‘cos I’m guessing this App is aimed at people like me who struggle to navigate the complicated world of perfumes.

The App itself is pretty basic, you fire it up… enter some personal details and preferences (I had to look up some of the fragrance types – chypre? fougere? wassat!) and finally start ‘rating’ fragrances that you’ve tried, with 5 stars being top marks.

The first thing I noticed was that once I’d entered my personal preferences, there doesn’t seem to be a way to ‘go back’ and edit them.  I’m stuck with having given ‘Oriental’ 3 stars, when I should have given it more.  Make sense?  The only way I can see to fix this is to delete my profile and start from scratch.  Frankly, I can’t be arsed.

It also appears to have a limited database of perfumes… I’m hoping that as time passes, the clever people at Givaudan will update the App to include more and more fragrances.  I couldn’t rate anything by Annick Goutal… still, it let me score SJP Covet (go figure!)  – and no, I’m not telling you what score I gave Covet, you’ll ban me from ever owning another perfume!

Once you’ve rated as many perfumes as you can remember owning or sniffing… click the “Recommend” button at the bottom and the App takes just seconds to whizz up a list of recommendations based on your previous input and ratings.  Clever no?

I’d have loved to have been able to browse through the perfumes in the App’s database… it seems that you can only really access a fragrance’s details if you know the name to search for it directly or get recommended it by the App.  Seeing as I like ‘floral’ perfumes, it would have been nice to have been able to browse through a category devoted to these scents.  It’s all about making the database accessible in as many ways as possible to the user.

I’ll be honest… I don’t know enough about fragrances to tell you whether the recommendations are much cop.  I had a nice selection of floral/oriental fragrances in my list (the image above is a generic screenshot) including Armani Sensi, Ralph Lauren Notorious, Trish McEvoy Gardenia Musk and Serge Lutens Daim Blond.  But having never smelt any of those, I’ll have to follow my nose to my local counters to see what I think.

Overall, iPerfumer is a nifty little App that occupied a good half hour of my time yesterday.  I had fun rating and reading little snippets of info about fragrances I’d never heard of before.  Ultimately, it needs a bit of work and a lot of updating.  But the potential is certainly there, and if anyone can do it… it’s Givaudan.

I’ll be back to let you know what I think of it’s recommendations… if I like the suggestions, then this App will be coming with me on many a Beauty Hall tour!

Thumbs up!  Oh, and did I mention it’s free?  Double thumbs up! (I look like an idiot!)

All aboard!  I have 3 to give away!

My giveaway is closing this evening at 11pm BST – get those last minute entries in!

Click here to find out how to win!

Due to be launched on QVC on the 10th July (that’s just a few days away!), Matte is the latest foundation to be released by mineral foundation pioneers Bare Escentuals.

Available in 15 shades to suit every skintone, I purchased my pot of Bare Escentuals Matte SPF15 (shade: Fair) in a blog sale a little while ago and have been putting it to good use in the warm weather we’ve recently been enjoying.

Just as finely milled as the original version, the foundation feels silky and light to the touch.  I’m starting to realise there’s a bit of a love/hate vibe around mineral foundation.  I will happily swear by the coverage it gives and I rarely get a cakey finish when wearing it.  Infact, I’ve often (ok, twice) been asked what foundation I’m wearing when shopping on beauty counters and both times when I’ve replied with the answer ‘mineral’ – the look of shock from the SA’s has been in “kodak moment” territory.

As with the original Bare Escentuals SPF15 foundation, I’d call this medium coverage.  You *can* build, but that’s when you begin to run the risk of it looking more obvious, especially on dryer skin.  You can purchase fuller and more sheer mineral foundations, it all depends on the ratio of the minerals, but Bare Escentuals in my opinion, offers straight down the line medium coverage.

An irritation with mineral anything, is packaging and portability.  In the past, Bare Escentuals foundations have been fine sitting on your dressing table… but take it anywhere without sellotaping up the holes in the sifter?  BIG MESS!  The new Bare Escentuals Matte foundation offers a very simple solution that quite frankly, should have been implemented years ago…

A little rotating lid like you’d find on your pepper pots covers the holes in the sifter and stops excess product leaking during transportation.  I told you it was simple!

Application is the same for the new Bare Escentuals Matte foundation as it is for the original.  Swirl, Tap, Buff!

Mineral still affords me the quickest and most forgiving of foundation applications.  I have a few great brushes for application: My Body Shop kabuki, my MAC Flat Top 180 or my Bare Escentuals Full Flawless Face Brush.  They all work equally well to provide an even finish, though flat top brushes tend to give a fuller coverage.

I’ve talked about application, packaging and my experiences with mineral foundation in general… let me tell you how I find the new Matte version in comparison to the Bare Escentuals original formula.

On initial application, it is indeed a completely matte finish (thanks to additional oil-absorbing minerals)… it wipes out all traces of shine and oil from my skin, leaving a wonderfully even surface.  The original leaves me with a touch of…. not sparkle, that’s comletely the wrong word.  Natural luminosity?  I would say that if you have more mature skin, you may prefer the more forgiving finish of the original formula.  If your skin is younger and more prone to oil… the Matte formula is something you should definitely try.  Alternatively, something I’ve had success with is wearing my original formula lightly all over before buffing a little Matte into my T-Zone.

I’ll share a little tip that SJ (Bare Escentuals National MUA) told me when I was introduced to the new foundation.  If, in the middle of the day… you think you need a little foundation touch up, grab a brush and simply buff your face with it (no product).  It re-distributes the minerals that are already on your face from the initial application and simply recharges your foundation.  It totally works and is something that I’ve always done with minerals anyway… but it seemed funny to hear a proper MUA confirm something that I do without any thought as to why or how it works.  Silly anecdote, but a tip is a tip!

Here’s a before/after application with the new Matte foundation (no concealer):

Longevity?  Well… that’s my other bugbear with mineral foundations.  It’s a shame that I have to take a brush and buff my face in the middle of the day… but I do.  Bare Escentuals Matte foundation is no different and generally lasts about 5 hours on me before I need a pitstop to the Ladies with my brush in hand to ‘redistribute’ the powder.  Then, I probably get another 3/4 hours out of that before I wanna apply more product.

The nature of the product however, means that it doesn’t matter if I apply a bit more over the top of the rest of my makeup.  It has no ill-effect at all and now that Bare Escentuals has made it portable… well, it’s just not much of an issue for me anymore.  Worth mentioning though.

Overall, it’s not an improvement on the Bare Escentuals Original foundation (bar the new sifter)… but it does sit very nicely alongside, offering an additional choice which may or may not be for you depending on your skin type.

Bare Escentuals Matte SPF15 Foundation will launch on 10th July exclusively on QVC priced at £19.50.

Are you a mineral foundation lover?

I’m on a little self-imposed no buy… it’s not time-limited, it’s more ‘sale’ limited.  I’ve splurged over the last few weeks.  First in the Harrods Beauty Hall (whoop, whoop sales!), then at MAC (bloody In The Groove) and then courtesy of some lovely Shu Uemura on Goss’ blog.  Yeah, I’ve been a little too tempted recently… and that doesn’t even include a few online shops and 1 or 2 sneaky counter stops.

So, what’s the best cure for a woman with shopaholic tendencies?

A great big internet-wide Summer Sale of course!!!

Nnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh.

That’s the sound of me physically restraining my fingers from whipping out the debit card.

Seeing as I’m not allowing myself to physically “checkout” the various things in my basket, I’m putting them here instead… it’s therapy.

Here’s my top buys from the various Beauty Sales around at the moment.

1. The only thing that tempts me on HQHair at the moment is this Urban Decay Preen Palette marked down to £12 from £18 – That’s £2 a shadow, not even including the 24/7 pencil!  You gotta love beauty spending justification maths right? 😉

2. Second up is an item from one of my favourite beauty sites BeautyBay.com, they mostly have awesome sales and I’m not disappointed this time round.  Becca eye shadows with a 70% saving?  I’ll have Chintz, Jacquard and Shantung please… no one wants the white one.

3. Another BeautyBay.com temptress is this Paul & Joe lipstick in 20.  I initially though, “Oh… it’s one of them dark, grungy colours that no one really wants”, but it’s called Milk Chocolate… and I reckon it’s probably a nice sheer cocoa.  Probably.

4. BeautyExpert only had one thing I’d take a flutter on… (get it!) – Every girl needs a pair of Shu Uemura feather lashes right? RIGHT?  This pretty pair can be yours for a very reasonable £13.50…. again, I say… NnnnGGGGHHHH!

5. ASOS, YOU BASTARDS!  Oh my god… I’ve been checking your sale pages for weeks and now I’m on a nooooooooo-buy, you go and update!  Check this out!  Everyone wanted a bit of Illamasqua Jo’Mina Nail Polish right?  Well, now it’s on sale at nearly half price!  Well… nearly…

oh… Baptiste is also up there… *bites knuckle and sobs*

6. Also reduced on ASOS… By Lauren Luke… £10 off each palette.  My Vintage Glam was the one that caught my eye back when they were released.  £25 was a teeny bit too steep for me… £15?  Rip your arm off.

So there’s my virtual shopping list… I’m so freakingly dreadfully tempted by the ASOS stuff… even some of the BarryM lippies are up there for £2.50 each.  I may console myself with one of those instead.  Or you may be seeing a slightly larger haul post next week.  Stay tuned.

If you buy anything, let me know…. I can take it!

L’Occitane are releasing a new limited edition range for the Summer set to tantalise our senses.

Verbena Summer Secret will launch this month with 4 products in the line up:

I’m a big fan of the original Verbena line up with it’s true citrusy notes that transport you from your 3’x3′ shower cubicle to the lemon groves of Sicily and let’s be honest… where else would you rather be on a Monday morning?

The range will include:

1. Moisturising Body Gel – £17.50
2. Shower Jelly – £12.50
3. Eau de Toilette – £34.00
4. Cooling Gloss – £7.00

I’m particularly keen to try the Moisturising Body Gel… it’s the word “gel”… anything that conjures up a mental image of being lightweight and easily absorbed is something that makes me sit up and take notice.  Especially in this weather.

Are you a L’Occitane fan?  What are your favourites from the brand?

Leila loves her Mummy.

If it’s good enough for Kylie…

You never have to travel far before you come across someone who will happily swear by these iconic pots of cream.  Whether it’s the original Cold Cream or some of their more uptodate incarnations, someone somewhere will happily tell you how Ponds is the only moisturiser their Nan/Mother/Sister (delete as appropriate) has been using since 1935 and that she doesn’t look a day over 23.

I’ve been using Pond’s Light Day Cream (£3.99) on and off for a while now and it is indeed (mostly) the bees knees.

Ignore for a moment the parabens, perfume and mineral oil contained within (I know, it’s hard)… these are pretty old school inexpensive ingredients designed to a) make the product stay fresh longer, b) smell nice and c) form a barrier between your skin and the drying effects of the environment.  Are there better ingredients that do the same job?  You bet.  Are there better ingredients that do the same job for the same price?  Not so much.

If you’re not sensitive to these ingredients (and I don’t seem to be) then I’m happy to use them.  Many people aren’t afforded that luxury, with artificial perfumes being among one of the biggest culprits for skin sensitivity.

But anyway, I’m going off on a tangent slightly… back to the review…

Attractively packaged in a heavyweight frosted glass jar, the cream has a thick but slippy texture.  It’s much easier to spread than that refrigerated Nutella texture that is Nivea Creme. It’s also as light and non-greasy as it claims, as long as I’m not too heavy handed.  I find that the cream sinks in beautifully and leaves my skin feeling softer and more supple than before.  If I get a bit carried away with it, it leaves my skin slightly tacky for about 10 minutes before subsiding.

It’s strong scent loses it a point (or 4)… I know it’s iconic… but I can still smell it 3 hours later!  Also, SPF 6… is that it?  It’s barely worth bothering is it?  I won’t leave the house without a minimum of SPF15 and it’s a shame that this doesn’t supply that extra protection.

There’s one thing I must mention though, it’s the one reason in particular that I will be repurchasing.  It’s compatible.

Shall I explain?

I often like to mix things into my moisturiser.  Luminizers mostly… but often I’ll add foundations to sheer them out a touch.  Things like the new LUSH Colour Supplement blend wonderfully into this cream and apply flawlessly.  Oh and another thing?  Powder products wear with absolutely no problems over the Pond’s Light Day Cream.  I can slap a bit of this on my face first thing and less than 5 minutes later, I’m swirl, tap, buffing my way to a flawless complexion quite happily.  Nothing ‘balls’ up under my fingers… it’s just a very laid back, inexpensive and light day cream for the summer.

Top marks! (nearly).

Why do products suddenly stop working?

I can love a shampoo for weeks… even months, then of all a sudden… it turns to shit and makes my hair feel lank or (more often in my case) starts to make my scalp scab up (nice).

And what about lipsticks?  Please tell me that this doesn’t just happen to me…

I have a lipstick that I’ve loved for many months now.  It’s a NYX.  Paris to be exact.  Loved it.  Swore by it.

Put it on yesterday and have completely stopped feeling it.  Shame that, ‘cos I’ve got 2 backups.

As far as I’m aware… the formula hasn’t changed, it smells fine and applies as smoothly as ever but just doesn’t seem to suit me anymore.  It must be me… it must be?

But is this why I have very few (if any) true Holy Grail products?  Am I just too flighty for that kind of commitment?

Do any of you experience this?  If so, what products have you noticed this with?

Soooooooooo The Boots Smooth Skin by iPulse IPL System…

Armpit or Leg…

Arm. Pit. or. Leg.

I tossed a coin.  You get to see my hairy legs.  Or, leg even.  Just below the knee… to the right of the 2nd thread vein from the left.

I dunno why I watermarked it, it’s not like I wanna claim it as mine.

Random Internet User:  “Hey, lady… is this your photo of your pasty white leg with dry skin and multiple hairs protruding from one follicle (you freak)”.

Me: “Um, nope… no, doesn’t look like one of mine”.

Random Internet User:  “But it says here… Lipglossiping.com”

Me: “…”

On the positive side… we’re kinda meant to have hairy legs.  I feel normal posting this in comparison to the hairy chin pics.

Until I can put the The Boots Smooth Skin to work on maintaining my facial in-clinic laser hair removal, I thought I’d best put it to good use on some other hirsute part of my anatomy.  Stop making gagging noises and be bloody grateful you were spared the bikini line bitches.

So this is the benchmark, here we are. Day One.  Well, not day one… this photo shows about 4 days worth of growth actually.  I’ve done my test patch and I’m good to go…. raring even.

I’m a little bit sad that I can’t fake tan my legs whilst I’m zapping but in the grand scheme of things, I’d rather be white than hairy.

Wish me luck, I’m going in!