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Thursday 4 February 2010

Estee Lauder - Michael Kors

More beige, and yet I want this collection so badly.  Someone needs to talk me down ... I have enough make up! 



... Don't I? I also think I need the Bobbi Brown summer corals collection.  I love me some coral ...

Any things you are looking forward to seeing appear in the shops over the next couple of months?
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Nail of the Day - Nubar Oh Baby Pink

In the spirit of full disclosure, I've already said that spring, to me, is all about the brights, right? That I'm not about the pastels?  Okay ... in brief, I love this polish ... but...


This is Oh Baby Pink and it's from the Nubar Hypnotic Valentine's collection (which is available from the lovely, lovely people at Beauty Shed) it's a pastel pink creme, that only took two coats to cover my nails in dense, pink colour.  It was a dream to apply, slightly streaky on the first coat, but fully opaque and shiny on the second. Nubars always wear pretty well, and I'm assuming this won't be an exception to that.

My photos wash the colour out a little here, making the shade a lot more pastel than it actually is.  In the flesh, this shade is more of a candy- than a baby-pink.  If Barbie OD'd on Tipp-Ex, then this is what she'd throw up. It's a real love-it or hate-it shade, this one. I think I'm on the wrong side of that particular choice! That said, I've been wearing the colour out and about the last day or two, and some people really, really love it.  I think it'd be a great shade for people with cool-toned pale skin, or very dark, or tanned skin.  I think on my pale (very pale) yellow-y skin that it just makes me look a bit jaundiced.


I took a picture in different light to see if I could capture the full effect of the colour, and these are the best I could do

In artificial light:


In natural daylight


If you  like soft, girly colours, then you will adore this polish. Nubar say it's a lovely romantic shade - I'm not entirely sold on that, being reminded faintly of Pepto-Bismol every time I look at it) but there's no doubting the quality of the polish itself.

This happened today though.  There may have been a couple of tears shed (ironically, it's also the picture closest to the real shade of the polish):


No flowers please, the ceremony will be a private, family-only affair.  MrLippie has been laughing about it ALL DAY.
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Wednesday 3 February 2010

Organic Wednesday - A change from our usual programming.

In which Get Lippie goes off on one and hopes she'll be forgiven ...



Here at Get Lippie, I have a lot of organic products, and I read a LOT of pseudo-scientific gubbins about why organic products are better than products that contain ingredients which are not organic. And, by and large, I take most  of these claims with a pinch of salt.  You can tell me that a product works because the contents are  harvested only by the light of a gibbous moon by virgins, then then ingredients are handed to fairies who use angel wings to mix them up (not actually that far-fetched a claim, to be honest) and I'll simply roll my eyes slightly (possibly whilst belming gently to myself) and then go back to smearing it wherever it's meant to be smeared and reading the ingredients list.

From reading that,  I'll know that a product works because it contains ingredients known to moisturise, or perfume, or colour and doesn't contain potential irritants. I'm a big fan of reading the ingredients list of any product I buy, organic or not.  More people should do it!

There are, however, two words which, when I encounter them on an organic product - and it is always an organic product I'm afraid, that will make me go all "HULK SMASH" on the offending article.  Those two words are:

Chemical Free

They make me crazy.  Because I'll assume two things.  That the makers of the products are idiots and, worse, that they think the people buying the products are idiots.  And that makes me angry.  Just because people may want to avoid increasingly synthetic products, it doesn't mean they're gullible.

There is nothing on this planet that is chemical-free.  I am chemicals.  You are chemicals.  Air is so full of chemicals it's astonishing we can breathe at all.  Water - the supposedly one of purest ingredients on earth is ... you guessed it ... chemicals!  ORGANIC INGREDIENTS CONTAIN CHEMICALS.  Everything does, and certainly everything on that pesky ingredients list will consist of chemicals in various guises. There simply is no such thing as chemical free.  Any product that tells you it's good because it doesn't contain "chemicals" is attempting to pull the wool over your eyes in order to get you to hand over your hard-earned pennies.

If a product is free of synthetic dyes, perfumes, colours, additives or preservatives, then that's great - to a point, but that's the subject of a whole other post - then quite rightly the packaging should mention it.  But I do wish organic producers wouldn't be so tricksy at times.   Sometimes you need a degree in double-speak to figure out if the products are entirely organic or not.  I really don't think you should be able to claim that a product is organic if it merely contains a couple of organic essential oils or something.  But again, that's the subject of another post.

What do you think of organic products? Does the provenance of the ingredients in your cosmetic items bother you at all? Did you make it to the end of this post? Are you a cosmetic brand who disagrees with what I've written here?  What drives YOU crazy about cosmetic claims or labelling?
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Tuesday 2 February 2010

Lip of the Day - Chanel Rouge Coco "Cambon"


This is a sneak preview of one of the lipsticks Chanel is premiering in March, from their "Rouge Coco" range, the shade I have is "Cambon":


Chanel are introducing this range of lipsticks - all named after Coco Chanel's favourite things, this one is named after the Cambon Handbag, hence the picture at the top there - for the spring/summer season.  Highly moisturising, and very pigmented, they're a delight to wear, and there will be 30 shades in the full range.

This is a HOT pink, indeed an almost fuschia shade, but with a hint of orange rather than blue.  I love it.  My All Time Favourite Lipstick of All Time is a Chanel pink (India, long since discontinued, but I never pass a Chanel counter without having a quick look for it, just in case, I miss it so!) so when this baby popped into my grubby little paw on Saturday , I was very happy indeed!  The pictures are making it look very scarlet, which is a shame, as this is very definitely a pink.


They wear well, fade evenly (no ring of doom here!) and last pretty much six or seven hours before you need to reapply - at least, if you don't eat, they do.






This is one of those bright, sunshine-y shades that instantly makes you happier when you wear it, and it's bringing a little cheer to my dingy corner of winter at the moment!

Many, many thanks to British Beauty Blogger for the surprise present, I love it!

Pastels, schmastels, my spring is all about the BRIGHT, how about you?
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Monday 1 February 2010

Lip of the Day - OCC Lip Tar NSFW


So, I'm back in the land of the lap-topped, and I couldn't be more relieved!  I'll do a more full review of IMATS later (I enjoyed it, but I have some serious reservations about how it was organised, to be honest) but I wanted to show these little babies off, as I think they might be my new very favourite things ...

Here's the skinny: "A stunning new innovation in lip color, OCC Lip Tar combines the longevity of a lipstick, with the ease of application of a gloss. Goes on slick and moist, and dries down to a satin finish. Ultra-saturated in color, OCC Lip Tar contains an unprecedented amount of pigment, so a little goes a very, very long way."

They're not kidding, to get full-lip coverage, you need only the very tiniest amount, seriously!  One thing you do not do when applying these is squeeze the tube ... you'll regret it!  You get seriously opaque lip coverage in one coat, and a lovely sheen when you apply too, but it is best to use a brush.  Here's how they look on the skin:

 

Sorry it's out of focus there, but you get a good idea of the colours, I bought Feathered, Katricia and Petty Beige for mixing purposes, I doubt they're colours I could ever wear, but I'm looking forward to trying out Safety Orange!  In case you're in any doubt how far these go, before I removed the swatches, I mixed them all together to see what I got:
 
Surprisingly not bad, I think I'll call this shade Sunburn!  It could have gone a lot further, but I feared I'd be stained all the way up to the elbows, and that's not a good look.
I wore NSFW with just a hint of mascara yesterday, I really, really like this shade, and how it feels on my lips, the product is totally weightless and not at all greasy (unlike say, Rouge Volupte - sorry, I really don't understand the fuss about those!), and lasts surprisingly well.  The really good thing about the application is that if it starts to wear off, you can just press your lips together a little and the colour will replenish itself a little from the movement.

This is how NSFW looks on the lips:

 

Please excuse my lips looking a little chapped there, if you've been following me on Twitter you'll know I've not been well for the last few days, and I've been chewing my lips in a slightly distracted fashion.

Do you have any Lip Tars? How do you wear them?

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