A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

It doesn’t matter how many billions of blades your razor has, they all have one thing in common – they go blunt.  It may be after 7 shaves, it may be after 15 or even 20 but you can bet your bottom dollar that before you’re ready to chuck it in the bin, you’ll be sporting the freshly corned-beef look on your shins.

The Razorpit is an ingenious solution to prematurely blunting razors.  Its objective is to clear the razor head of the tiny hairs, dead skin and shaving soap that inevitably builds up in there over time.  Yeah, gross – hope I don’t come back as a Razorpit in another life.

It works quite simply, thanks to the power of friction.  We all know about the power of friction don’t we?  I’ve seen enough carpet burns over the years (not on me, obvs) to appreciate the impressive force that a bit of friction can create.  In order to fire up this power on the Razorpit, you need to apply some shaving foam or liquid soap to the flat plane of the gadget and push your razor over the lubricated surface in the opposite direction to the regular shaving motion.

My razor wasn’t particularly gunked up but it did remove a couple of stray hairs that I’d checked were firmly wedged between the blades just moments prior to testing it out.

Overall, my feelings on the Razorpit are mixed.  I think it’s a great gadget that seems to do exactly what it says on the tin, and I’ve no doubt that it will prolong the life of my razor.  I think my hesitation lies in the simply sexist fact that I think this one is more for the boys in the household?  I just feel that I can live without something like this in my life… Mr. L on the other hand is now sporting a very pink new accessory.  And loving it.

My recommendation?  Get one for the man who has everything.

The Razorpit is priced at £19.99 and available to buy online (in either pink or black!) from presentsformen.co.uk

* press sample

I don’t know how I feel about including this lipstick in my red lip series. I mean, it’s totally like the lipstick angels came down from heaven and stole all of the cherries to make it, but…

This isn’t a red lipstick and I’m sick of hearing it described as a blue-based red.  It’s pink.  Pink like Nicki Minaj can only f*cking dream of.  Although having said that, I’m gonna propagate the “this is a blue-based red lipstick” ’cause it’ll probably work better for my SEO.  Don’t tell me you haven’t been warned though.  It’s f*cking pink.

Colour dramas aside (the ones in my head), Revlon Cherries in the Snow is totally worthy of all the praise bestowed upon it, feeling more like a £20 lipstick than a £7.49 one.  It’s rich, luxurious, deeply-pigmented and long-lasting.  You can work it into the lips like a stain or wear it in all it’s full-bodied glory.  If you apply, blot, apply, blot (and I mean really blot) – it doesn’t transfer all over your glass and stays put for most of the day.

Frankly, every woman should own this – aslong as you like pink.  I found it really hard to get hold of, it was never in Boots and I’ve been looking casually for the best part of 4 years (seriously).  In the end I picked it up on eBay for way cheaper than the RRP anyway.  Go buy it.  Like now.

Do you own Cherries in the Snow?  Pink innit?

Thank you for all the Twitter and email entries for my recent giveaway to win one of five Revitalash Volumizing Mascaras (worth £19.50 each)…

… I’m pleased to announce the following five winners, each of whom will receive a Revitalash Volumizing Mascara to add some va-va-voom to their lashes!

@ladytubedriver

@powderedalmond

Dr. M. Karela (via email)

@theladiesuk

@scarie

Congratulations!  I’ll be in touch over the next couple of days to request address details and will get your prize in the post by the end of the week!

Small children and babies are often bestowed with the gift of incredible lashes.  Have you looked into a four year old’s eyes recently?  Go find one and then come back and tell me that it’s not ridiculously unfair that they get such beautiful lashes.  I don’t know what happens to them over time but eventually, they too will spend their adulthoods trying to recapture the flutteryness of their youths.  Leila has some of the most awe-inspiring lashes I’ve ever seen – she has my curl and her Dad’s length… it’s a killer combination even if I do say so myself.  Me, well I need a little assistance in the lash department.  Not too much, but without a good mascara – they’re pretty insignificant.

Today, I’ve got a really lovely mascara to show you.  Not only that, but I’ve got FIVE of them to give away to you, my lovely readers.

Revitalash, the brand perhaps better known for their length-inducing eyelash conditioner also make a rather nifty day-to-day mascara.  The Revitalash Volumizing Mascara (£19.50) promises both volume and definition, the holy grail for thin, weedy lashes.

The packaging is fairly unassuming and the brush… pretty unremarkable.  There’s nothing about the product that gives you a buzz of anticipation, but they say it’s always the quiet ones don’t they?

The formula is quite, quite lovely… inky black with an almost rubbery texture.  It’s wet but not runny and leaves my lashes super-soft regardless of how many coats I apply.  From the first coat through to the third, this didn’t clump on me at all.  It pulled the lashes together at the base to create a greater emphasis on the drama but kept some really good definition right through to the tips.  One coat yields a distinctly natural result but from the 2nd coat onward, it was easily buildable into something more flutter-worthy.  Want to see?

No mascara on the left, three coats of Revitalash Volumizing Mascara on the right.  You can see the fullness at the lashline, when combined with some careful eyeliner application, the effect is dramatic.  I didn’t experience any smudging or flaking though this isn’t a waterproof product so perhaps not as suitable for those with particularly watery eyes.

Overall, I’d describe the Revitalash Volumizing Mascara as a solid all-rounder that ventures gallantly into the dramatic territory.  It’s not quite false lash effect but will see you through from day to night without any clumpiness headaches.  For stockist details, visit www.skinbrands.co.uk or buy online from lookfantastic.com

Or…

Have a go at winning one for yourself in today’s giveaway!

To enter and stand a chance of winning one of FIVE Revitalash Volumizing Mascaras, simply…

1.  Follow @Lipglossiping on Twitter

2.  Tweet: I’ve entered to win one of 5 @Revitalash Volumizing Mascaras in an exclusive competition with @lipglossiping http://bit.ly/xOMl1F

The competition closes on the 7th March at 23.59.  You have one week to enter!

T&C
1. Entry open to UK residents only.
2. One winner will be picked at random from all @Lipglossiping followers who have tweeted the required phrase.
3. Competition closes on 7th March 2012 at 23.59.
4. Winner will be notified over Twitter within 5 days of the competition’s closing date.
5. If you don’t have a twitter account you may still enter by sending me an email via the contact page using the subject line: “Revitalash Volumizing Mascara competition” and leaving your name and contact details.  If you win via this method, you will be notified by email.  No email details will be kept once this competition has closed.

Please, for the love of all things vanity-driven, excuse the ‘left to dry naturally until it looks like shit’ hair.  Please.

Brushes mentioned:

E.L.F – Bamboo Angled Blush Brush (£5.50)
E.L.F – Studio Blush Brush (£3.50)
E.L.F – Studio Small Precision Brush (£3.50)
E.L.F – Studio Powder Brush (£3.50)

Boots No7 – Concealer Brush (£3.00 with till spit)
Boots No7 – Eyeshadow Brush (£0.75 with till spit)

Crown Brush – C139 Stiff Tapered Crease Brush (£2.95)
Crown Brush – C217 Bent Liner Brush (£2.60)

Stila – #4 Precision Eyeliner Brush (£3.50)

Revlon Vital Radiance – Brow Brush (£1.29)

.

Do you agree with any of my choices?  What are your favourite cheap makeup brushes?

My husband has just finished watching REN’s new short film after I squealed like a 12 year old and called him over to my computer.  He watched with a flicker of amusement on his face and as the screen darkened, turned to me and said “so REN… they’re a Swedish brand right?”.

Well, no.  But REN is the Swedish for “clean” and the British brand (thanks Jane!) are celebrating 11 years of sharing their passion for beautiful, clean skin with the world!  Screw stereotypes, let’s roll with it.  Please don’t click play at work/infront of the kids.  You have been warned.

Danny Brook Taylor, the man behind the short film said:

There’s a modernity about REN, coolness and confidence that we wanted to expose.  It’s about saying I’m happy with my skin, and I’m going to care for it, show it off. Touch someone’s skin that I love and celebrate it.

Personally, once I stopped blushing in my slightly prudish way, I kinda fell in love with the simplicity of it.  Sure, it’s attention-seeking and “ooh aren’t we being controversial” but I can’t help but admire the gentle premise and the rejection of the airbrush when it comes to body image.  Yeah REN, you got my attention and I love you a little bit more for it.

What do you think of REN’s short film?  Like it, loathe it?  Wanna talk about it?  The twitter hashtag is #lovecleanskin and the guys responsible are @renskincare

This month sees a new foundation release from Rimmel London which promises to instalntly re-awaken skin with a healthy, radiant looking glow.  Otherwise known as Wake Me Up Foundation.  We could all do with a bit of that no?

The formula contains tiny ‘radiance pearls‘ to help illuminate the complexion… but I can’t see them, so they really must be erm, tiny.  It’s not one of those sparkly foundations that luminize by turning your face into a disco-ball, put it that way.  It’s medium/full coverage and conceals an uneven skintone brilliantly… I can also feel some significant silicone going on with a primer-y slip that effectively conceals larger pores better than many foundations I’ve tried.  And I’ve tried a lot.

I’m using the lightest shade (Ivory), which as you can see above – is a hair too dark and a hair too warm for me.  This isn’t groundbreaking stuff… when you only have six shades in your range, you’re not going to have a shade for everyone.  Something to bear in mind if you’re on the pale end of NW15 (I’d class myself somewhere inbetween NW15/NW20).

It claims to last 10hrs, I’d say it gets close to that for me, a little bit of slip down the bridge of my nose but it wasn’t sliding off my face by lunchtime.

Infact, I think this is pretty darn amazing for an £8.99 price tag.  Except for one thing.  It hates dry skin… if you have any flakes, no matter how invisible they may be when you’re bare-faced – once you’ve applied this, you’ll be scratching at them in an attempt to dislodge.  I can’t comment on how this would work for oily skin types, I think you may experience a little too much slip as I didn’t feel this was particularly mattifying.

On my cheeks, where my skin is ‘normal’ - this foundation worked flawlessly, better than flawlessly thanks to it’s pore-busting properties but over my problem (dry) areas, it struggled.  In other words… I’m coming back to this when I get my dry skin under control and I may not stray for a while.

Rimmel London’s NEW Wake Me Up Foundation is available instore now from Boots, Superdrug, etc. Priced at £8.99 for 30ml.

* press sample

…featuring the gorgeous Elisa Sednaoui (is it just me or is she channeling a young Helena Christensen in this?)

The fragrance is described as an Ambery Floral with notes that include pink pepper, orange blossom and tonka bean and was created by Louise Turner – who is perhaps best known for the 2010 hit which was Chloe’s Love, Chloe.

Roberto Cavalli’s new fragrance will be available to purchase exclusively at Harrods from the 12th February before a nationwide roll out in March.

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

Rituals Sunglow Cheek & Eye Glow in Peach is a multi-tasking palette filled with some truly lovely warm-toned shades that work well even on my cool skin tone.

The palette (which contains a generous 9g of product) is currently on sale on the Rituals website and reminds me of a more affordable version of something like Laura Mercier’s Shimmer Bloc or Bobbi Brown’s Shimmer Brick.

A total of five colours that harmonise well together to create some different eye-variations or if swirled gently with a large, fluffy brush will impart a warm glow to the cheeks.

My preferred way of using this is as an eye palette, it’s one of those no-nonsense palettes that does the hard work for you.  The shade placements are pretty obvious and the mineral formula means that these shades blend together effortlessly.

The high shimmer finish means that this won’t be to everyone’s tastes and when I use this on my cheeks, I use just the tiniest touch over the top of my blusher and edging my cheekbone rather than the apple of my cheek.  In other words, I use this more as a highlighter than a blusher.

I’ve got some swatches below and I’ll make this the feature of my next FOTD – it is quite Autumnal after all no?

A comparison with my other peachy shimmer palettes (Prescriptives The Illuminator, Rituals Sunglow Peach, Bobbi Brown Shimmer Block in Nectar)…

Of the three, the Rituals is the most genuinely multi-functional but also the softest-textured, meaning that it imparts a lot of product onto the brush and creates a little dust when working with it.  The Bobbi Brown is hard-textured and doesn’t work anywhere near as well as eyeshadow but is my preferred option for blush.  The Prescriptives?  Well, seeing as you can’t get it anymore… there’s not much point me going on about it!

Rituals Sunglow* also comes in a range of pinks and a bronze-toned version.  Currently on the Rituals website priced at £17.90

* press sample

Last night, London’s iconic Battersea Power Station played host to an electrifying party held in honour of Kate Moss’ 10-year partnership with Rimmel.  Kate arrived at the venue in true supermodel fashion, by helicopter.  Dressed in a vintage black dress and wearing her personally designed Rimmel London Lipstick Collection By Kate in Red (shade no. 1 – her personal favourite), she worked the classic ensemble with her signature, effortless style.

(Photo by Dave M. Benett/Getty Images)

She was joined by celebrity guests including: Poppy Delevingne, Sadie Frost, Jasmine Guiness, Cara Delevingne, Erin O’Connor and Camilla Rutherford.  The party guests sipped at bespoke Rimmel cocktails named after blockbuster products including Extra Wow (Gin, lemon, apple and elderflower), Glam Eyes (Vodka, blackberry and violet) and Max Gloss (Mango, lime, ginger beer) whilst watching the large screen coverage of Kate’s dramatic helicopter entrance and live tweets from the VIP guests throughout the evening.

(Photo by Dave M. Benett/Getty Images)

(Photo by Dave M. Benett/Getty Images)

Steve Mormoris, Senior Vice-President, Global Marketing for Coty Beauty commented: “We’re delighted to be celebrating 10 years of Kate Moss and Rimmel, marking the occasion with the launch of Kate’s first personally designed collection for the brand. Kate truly epitomises the London Look: her unique style and spirit is emulated across the world.”

As much as I wish I could have attended, I had a date with my daughter and not even La Moss could persuade me away from that.  Still, I am very sorry to have missed my girl-crush Shingai Shoniwa (from the Noisettes) wow the guests with her performance and by all accounts, Solange Knowle’s beautiful hair very nearly stole the limelight completely.

(Photo by Dave M. Benett/Getty Images)

On the inspiration behind her new lip collection with Rimmel London, Kate said: “The inspiration was for classic shades that I have always worn and had in my handbag. There is always a small selection of shades I always go back to and I wanted this range to reflect that as they will never go out of style.”

The new 7 piece collection of classic lip colours is exclusively available from Boots until the 28th September before a nationwide roll-out.  Lipsticks are priced at £5.49 each.

…is precisely what I thought when I downloaded these images.  Truth be told, I was trying some different angles because I knew the usual above eye-level (wobbly chin minimizing) camera angle would completely obliterate the lashes that I worked so hard to apply.

So then I did some shots with the camera pointing up at the lashes, but they were no good ‘cos you could see right up my nose and I’m neither denying nor confirming reports that we had a bogey situation.

So, for the love of God, please don’t think this is an actual pose.

But what I wanted to say was, wheee Red Cherry Lashes!

If you don’t know about Red Cherry lashes, you’re missing out.  It’s more likely that some of my lovely UK readers won’t have heard of them purely because availability isn’t quite so good here in the UK.  I bought these (Red Cherry #600) last week from BuyEyelashes.co.uk and they arrived a few days later.  I do own some other pairs but being the non false lash wearer that I am, I haven’t gotten around to trying them on yet.

Let’s take a closer look at the lashes.

100% Human Hair.  I’m sure this is supposed to be a good thing, they do feel very fluttery and naturalistic but is it just me who wonders exactly where this human hair comes from?  I know you’re thinking India or the Far East but I don’t mean that.  What I’m really thinking about, is the possibility that I’m wearing someone’s bum hair on my face.

Looks good though doesn’t it?

The bands on these Red Cherry #600s are beautifully pliable and thin enough to work with comfortably.  I applied the lashes above with the help of my new Japonesque tool which I bought after Liloo said we all needed one.  It does make a difference, but I’ll blog about that later.

Red Cherry 600s are priced at £3.10 from BuyEyelashes.co.uk, or I have used this eBay seller before for Red Cherry lashes.

So, there we have it.  Bum hair, ridiculously thick eyeliner (that thing where you make it thicker to go over a booboo) and a picture that makes me look like I’m about to make love to myself.

Have a lovely weekend special people.