Reviews | Lipglossiping

Category: Reviews

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Prestige Skin Loving Minerals Bronzing Powder #03

I picked this up on a recent expedition to one of my local Boots stores.

Prestige are originally a US brand, now sold in over 45 countries globally. Over here, they’re available in larger Boots stores.

When I saw the Skin Loving Minerals Brozing Powders, I was surprised to see one of them so pale in tone… infact, sad old git that I am… I got quite excited and practically skipped to the checkouts. Although, not before adding half the Bourjois stand to my basket.

Anyway, shopaholic tendencies aside, how does this stack up?

It’s a baked, marbelized pressed powder with a lot of shimmer, but no glitter. Texture is smooth enough, but not as smooth as some…. I’m thinking of the LE No7 Highlighting Powder which glides like velvet onto the skin (I don’t own it – I think 4 pale gold powder highlighters are quite enough for one makeup addict’s collection – at least that’s the mantra).

I really like the packaging, it’s not fancy… it’s not even particularly pretty, but it feels quite modern and I can’t think of too many producs that are housed in little clear perspex-esque boxes like this. It’s functional and clean. Thumbs up.

You can see how shimmery it is (maybe the shade name “Pure Shimmer” should have given me… yano… a freaking clue!). You need a fairly light touch and I use it as a highlighter not a bronzer… I’m not a discoball. I think it’s even too shimmery to use on the crests of your facial contours… I wouldn’t want a strip of this running down the bridge of my nose for example…

But, as a highlighter, I really like it. It imparts a healthy glow and does all that lovely shimmery stuff when you turn your head slightly. Compared to NARS Albatross, it’s not a bad dupe at all really colour/shimmer-wise. Mr. L couldn’t tell the difference. But before I start shouting DUPE Alert left, right and centre… I’ll have a proper look at both under some natural light, I think the Prestige may be a touch more golden…

Prestige Skin Loving Minerals Bronzers are available in 3 shades and are currently on offer in Boots stores nationwide, priced at £6.99 each (a saving of £2 on the RRP)

Posted in Bargains, High Street Brands, Powders, Prestige, Reviews | 14 Comments »

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

ELF Studio Cream Eyeliner in Coffee

My last foray into ELF’s eyeliners was not a successful one. About a year ago, I picked up a couple of the liquid liners they do and HATED them. Scratchy and lacking in pigmentation made them a huge fail for me so I was ready to be disappointed when I accepted the offer to try a liner from the new ELF Studio Cream Eyeliner range.

I chose Coffee, a medium brown shade. There are currently 4 shades in the line up: Coffee (medium brown), Black, Midnight (dark blue) and Ivory (off white pearl)

The packaging fits in nicely with the rest of the Studio line, the jar is plastic with a solid, chunky feel. The lid screws on with a satisfying click when it’s fully tightened. Lightweight and portable, it’s not the sleekest eyeliner in the world, but it’s fully practical.

The texture of the liner is *incredibly* soft, perhaps a little too soft. When I dip my brush, the fibres sink downward straight into the product which makes it a little hard to stroke across the surface without picking up too much product. A couple of times, I’ve picked up a whole clump of eyeliner on the brush instead of an even coating.

You can see the tip of the brush sinking straight into the product in the shot above. Whilst this might mean it takes a little more care to load your brush, it makes for the smoothest application of any liner I’ve ever used. And I’ve used a lot. Note, that this only applies to this particular shade as I know texture can vary between products in the same line.

Pigmentation is medium, I needed to go over the line twice to build it up to my desired strength, but when a liner glides as smoothly as this one does, it’s not a problem.

The above swatch shows 3 swipes of the liner. It takes about a minute to set before becoming truly transfer proof. Even on my hooded eyelid it stuck fast for hours, by bedtime the line had faded to about half it’s original intensity, but the fading was even.

I’ve also used it as a cream base which worked really well thanks to it’s super-soft texture. Blending was a delight and I love wearing it under greens to create a more ‘old gold’ kinda shade. I haven’t noticed it partcularly increasing longevity on eyeshadows though, so I still combine with a slick of eyeshadow primer underneath.

I’m amazed by the quality of my ELF Studio Cream Eyeliner, and at £3.50 you really can’t go wrong.

Posted in Bargains, ELF, Eye Liner, Reviews | 14 Comments »

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Lanolips Lip Ointment

After suffering for the past 4 months with flaky, dry lips… I’ve finally found my cure. Let me tell you a bit about it…

Lanolips is an Australian brand that proudly produces one of the most natural cosmetic products on earth.

The Lanolips lineup currently includes 2 core products:

~ Lanolips Lip Ointment with Colour 12.5ml (AUD13.95/£8.40)

~ Lanolips 101 Ointment 17.5ml (AUD17.95/£11)

I was sent the range for review consideration over a month ago now and I tell you now without a scrap of embarrassment despite the risk of sounding like I’m gushing…. this stuff has made a big difference to my life.

I could tell you all about how pure and natural the ointments are, I could share the anecdotes about how it’s so safe it can be used on the mouths of new-born babies… but to be honest, you can find all that out by visiting their website. I wanna tell you why from this day forward, I’m never going to be without a tube of this in my handbag.

But let me first concentrate on the Lanolips Ointment with Colour.

These are fabulous lip gloss alternatives. They’re sheer, but the colour is build-able. Thanks to a completely non-sticky formula, you can also apply without fear of errant breezes gluing your hairdo to your face.

The shades:

Rose is a milky-toned soft pink, perfect for paler skin-tones and also works fabulously to tone down bright lipsticks a touch. I feel it may be a little too pale for darker skintones and WOC unless you apply with a light hand or like the super pale look.

Dark Honey is a true dark nude shade, I would imagine this is flattering to all skin-tones – very easy to wear. It’s a “your lips but better” shade for me.

Sunshine is a warm, summery coral. It’s beautiful.. and on paper, is probably my favourite. But unfortunately, it doesn’t flatter my cool skin-tone quite as well as the others.

Apples is described byLanolips as “the colour of babies lips” and I totally get that decription, it’s a rosebud red. I’m afraid it looks a touch warmer in my swatch than in real life though, sorry about that!

There’s also another, newly released shade called Rhubarb which has been described as a deep, vibrant pink, but I don’t have that one to show you.

Scent-less and taste-less, I’ll be using these daily in the Summer when I want something a little lighter, a little more natural and glowy.

The main point to remember with the entire Lanolips range is the core ingredient, the fundamental base upon which all this colour frivolity has been added – the ultra-moisturising Lanolin. It keeps my lips supple and so far is improving tone and texture unlike anything else I’ve tried.

Having sad that, there are still a couple of things that I’d change.

I’d personally prefer a slanted plastic applicator so that I could use the tube to applythe product instead of my finger. I’d also like to see the packaging include the word ‘tint’ somewhere for clarification. The colours look SO bright in the tube, I’d be surprised if there weren’t at least a few consumers who were expecting more colour payoff upon application.

That aside, onto my favourite product!

Lanolips 101 Ointment is the DADDY. It’s the no-nonsense “what you see is what you get” multi-purpose cure-all.

The stand-alone tube, slightly bigger than the rest at 17.5ml, contains nothing but pure ultra medical-grade lanolin. To be (un)fair, it’s kinda boring… it’s unscented, unflavoured, uncoloured, un…inspiring… yeah, it’s a whole lot of ‘uns’.

But it’s this little marvel that I’m marking up as my lip saviour today.

I’m not new to lanolin. I was a big fan of Lansinoh throughout the months I breastfed my baby. Lansinoh saved my poor nips (tmi?) on many occasions whilst me and the babs were still both figuring out what the hell we were supposed to be doing. I’ve even tried to use Lansinoh on my lips before… but it’s too damn sticky. I used to be able to bear it for about 15 minutes before having to grab a tissue and wipe it off. I’ve been told by Lansinoh PR that it’s not as sticky as it used to be, but I only have the experience of my year-old tube to compare to.

Lanolips advise you to use the Lanolips 101 Ointment generously but I haven’t found that I’ve needed to apply it very thickly at all. Which is just aswell, ‘cos I hate that feeling where you’ve got about 8″ of product built up on your lips.

I use the Lanolips 101 Ointment in a number of ways:

1. On my lips before bed as a moisturiser
2. A thin layer underneath lipstick to moisturise and stop matte lipsticks looking like crap
3. A thin layer above lipstick to add shine
4. On Leila’s eczema
5. On my cuticles at night as an intensive moisturiser.

I think out of all those uses, the one that stands out to me… the one reason that I’ll be repurchasing this product for as long as I can get my grubby little hands on it is #2.

Is that shallow? Surely I should choose the fact that it’s a fabulous lip conditioner? Or um… wait, maybe I should have chosen the fact that it diminishes my daughter’s eczema patches… but um… I can wear my OCC Lip Tars without looking like I’ve been mummified!

I can wear my Revlon and MAC mattes lipsticks again – the joy! I’ve spent months trying different lip balms underneath with no success. On the rare occasion that a lip balm has succeeded at keeping my lips smooth, the lippie has inevitably slid off my face after 20 minutes. If anything, as long as I keep my layer of Lanolips nice and thin, it’s almost as if it gives my lipstick something to adhere to!

The cheapest online stockist I can find offering international delivery is MakeUWell who charge 10AUD (about £6) for postage.

Lanolips 101 Ointment *is* my solution. Now I just need someone to come along and stock it in the UK so I don’t have to pay international postage charges. Is that really too much to ask?

Posted in Lip Colour, Reviews, Skincare | 10 Comments »

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

Urban Decay Primer Potion in Sin – At Long Last!

Here comes the older, more glam sister…

Urban Decay Primer Potion in Sin has been out in the US for over a year now, and I’ve been cooling my heels ever since I saw it pop up on Sephora many moons ago!

It promises all the benefits of the original UDPP with a little added pizazz.

They Say:

~ Use it alone; it’s a crease proof shadow!
~ Maximise it’s potential by using it as a highlighter, dab on brow bone, eye corners and cheeks for a radiant finish.
~ Sin works perfectly with any eye shadow and doesn’t show through, experience vibrant colour all day, with absolutely no creasing!

I received the sample of this last week and as a fan of the original, I was keen to see exactly why I’d want to purchase this one instead.

The new-fangled angled (I’m a poet) wand which promises to reach into each dark primer-potion filled corner of your tube. I was initially sceptical about how putting an angle on the wand would *really* help, but having had a little play at ’scooping’ from that very bottom jutting out bit, I think it might just work. I don’t like how it makes the wand more difficult to remove from the tube though, I keep thinking it’s gonna ping primer at me as it pops free.

Swatched beside the original UDPP you can see that it’s a champagne cream with a metallic looking shimmer. I instantly liked it… what with being a fan of metallic neutrals with a bit of shimmer n’all

It’s quite heavily pigmented and the first thought that struck me was that it may do a better job at evening out skintone on pigmented eyelids better than the original. I’m only speculating here as I don’t have a particular issue with red eyelids, but it makes a nice neutral base that sheers out well depending on how much you blend.

I really like this worn as a cream eyeshadow combined with a powder crease colour, as you would imagine, the staying power is rather marvellous.

The two primers blended out a little (not completely).

You can see that Sin retains it’s champagne shimmer whilst the original UDPP is well on it’s way to blending invisibly.

I’m an idiot and forgot to take a photo demonstrating how the same eye shadow looked applied over both primers. I promise I’ll do it before the week is out and just pop up a quick comparison post. Basically, if you’re applying a shadow over UDPP Sin… it ups the shimmer. I <3 it, but it’s important to see as it may put you off completely.

I find that staying power for eyeshadows applied ontop is pretty equal for both primers, if there is a difference, it’s not discernible to me. Blendability is still hard work over Sin and I’m a bit disappointed about that as it’s the only thing I really would have loved to see changed about the original UDPP.

D’yanowot… I’m on the fence about it with regards to my original question: “Why would I purchase this one over the original?”

Don’t get me wrong… I really like it, there’s nothing for me not to like. I like neutral, I like shimmer…

Might I sometimes want some of my shimmer eyeshadows even more shimmery… Possibly!

Do I want all my eyeshadows turned a bit shimmery by using it? Probably not…

Do I want a lovely champagne cream eyeshadow practically guaranteed not to budge in the summer? Yes please!

Would I purchase? I dunno! Stop asking me hard questions!! What say you?

Urban Decay Primer Potion in Sin is due out next month, priced at £11.50.

Posted in Base & Primers, High Street Brands, Reviews, Urban Decay | 18 Comments »

Friday, February 19th, 2010

Not so Sleek

I was recently sent two products from Sleek Makeup’s range, focusing on a couple of shades that are suited to this year’s Spring trend.

On the left we have the Dip It in Pastel Green and on the right, an Eye Dust in Livid Lilac.

I’m a beauty addict with eclectic tastes and try not to discriminate based on price or accessibility of products. So, I approach this review with a fully open mind. Even when I held the Dip It pot in my fingers, twirling it…. marvelling at how incredibly cheap Sleek had managed to make it look.

The eye dust packaging doesn’t fare much better. I mean, they’re both obviously plastic, but they’re SO lightweight I’m surprised that they’re not defying the rules of gravity.

Having said that, I ultimately only really care about how it looks if I’m gonna be seen in public with it (shallow soul that I am), how about the actual contents?

How ABOUT those contents…

Well, there they are. In all their ’spilled across my new desk cos the sifter fell out when I tapped the bottom of the pot’ glory. You can only imagine how much I was loving that purple Eye Dust at this point.

When I grumbled about my little dust-spilling incident on Twitter, it turned out that I wasn’t the only one who had nearly ended up with a lapful of Livid Lilac. Something for Sleek Makeup to investigate perhaps?

Anyway, the colour is pretty… it’s more vivid in the pot than it is swatched, a good thing seeing as it’s called ‘Livid Lilac’ afterall and looks thoroughly ‘Royal Purple’ in the container.

The top swatch shows the Dip It liner in Pastel Green. It’s an opaque mint, and really does look like a fabulous shade for Spring. Livid Lilac is far softer once swatched (dry) and slightly metallic. I was really impressed with the choices for this season’s shades.

Application of the Dip It was a bit tricky. The wand and narrow tip allowed for a precise sweep across the eye lid, but as I was drawing the line, I found that the applicator dragged at the pigmentation leaving the line of colour less pigmented in the centre than at the edges. To be fair, nothing that a second coat didn’t remedy. The liner dried almost instantly without transferring to the hooded part of my eyelids.

I had no issues applying the Eye Dust, it blended smoothly and the colour depth was nicely buildable.

Here’s a FOTD, don’t laugh… the shades are a bit bright for me, but I enjoyed playing!

Unfortunately, that’s where the fun ended, 20 minutes later, I looked in the mirror and saw that the eyeliner had begun to flake…

Bits of Dip It kept getting caught in my eyelashes, so I ended up using an eyeshadow brush to work back and forward until I’d dislodged all the flakes. I wasn’t left with much.

Fast forward to bed-time and my cleansing routine. I cleansed with my ever faithful cleansing oil and a blob of Cetaphil to finish, towelled my face dry and then shrieked at the mirror when I saw a matching pair of pink-dyed eyelids looking back at me. I would have photographed them for the comedy value, but it was kinda late and I’m kinda lazy so you’ll just have to use your imagination instead.

On the plus side, it showed that my sense of symmetry has improved. Those dyed patches were perfect.

Overall, I was disappointed at the quality of the 2 products I was sent by Sleek Makeup which is a shame, because in the past I’ve been mostly impressed (how ’bout them 12 pan palettes eh?).

Sleek Makeup products are available from selected Superdrug stores, the Eye Dusts and Dip Its both retail for £2.99 each.

Posted in Bargains, Eye Liner, Eye Shadow, FOTDs, High Street Brands, Reviews, Sleek | 20 Comments »

Monday, February 15th, 2010

Deep Skincare – Splendid Smooth Legs

Deep Skincare are a fairly new Dutch brand that I hadn’t heard of until they contacted me in December to ask if I’d like some products for review consideration. Taking a look at their ‘about’ page… they seem quite hippy in a love each other, love yourself kinda way. Which is nice! Not enough people love me and I could do with some more harmony in my life.

Anyway, enough of all that! Looky looky leg balm!

Splendid Smooth Legs. What a rubbish name. It’s like one of those bad Japanese translations isn’t it? I think they should have added a “silky” in their somewhere to really tip it over the edge.

Housed in a heavy dark glass jar with a fairly plain label, the product has a nice simple look. Understated. I like it.

The first thing you notice when you unscrew the lid is the smell. Immediately recognisable… Taking a look at the ingredients confirms the source of the scent: Camphor and Menthol. Vaporub anyone? I love the smell of Vicks, but I know some people hate it, so beware! Once on the skin, it takes about 15 minutes for the scent to fade completely.

The cream is thick but lightweight, a beautiful texture, it feels instantly cooling as it makes contact with the skin, fantastic for weary legs.

Looking more closely at the ingredients, the cream contains Arnica which is widely believed to help reduce inflammation, bruising and encourage the dilation of blood vessels and capillaries under the skin. Witch Hazel also puts in an appearance on the ingredient list, a natural astringent often put to use as a treatment for varicose veins.

Exactly the ingredients I want to revive and massage into my legs after a full day on my feet.

They say:

Deep: Splendid Smooth Legs sports an invigorating and active formula. A delicious treat to pamper weary or swollen legs. Due to the purely natural ingredients, this balm has a very wholesome effect.

Rather than every-day use as suggested on the jar, I’ve been using this a few times a week. A small amount goes a long way and leaves my legs feeling refreshed, cooled and less ‘heavy’ than before. In the Summer, I do a lot of walking and I can’t wait to put it to good daily use as part of a post-bath routine!

While I remember, I also applied this in the middle of the night a few days ago after waking up with cramp in my calf, it really relaxed the tightness in the muscle and for once I didn’t get that limping you get the next morning when you don’t catch cramp in time. I’d really recommend this as a hugely useful gift for mamas-to-be. I suffered horrendous leg cramps in my 3rd trimester and would have loved a pot of this.

Do you neglect your legs? I’m ashamed to admit that mine don’t generally get much attention other than a nice shaving gel. I don’t know why I’m so lax, varicose veins ain’t pretty!

You can purchase Deep Skincare online from their website. Splendid Smooth Legs is priced at £14.21 for 250ml.

If you want to learn more about taking good care of your pins, check out The Leg Room. What Kate doesn’t know about legs, isn’t worth knowing.

Posted in Bodycare, Deep Skincare, Reviews, Skincare | 5 Comments »