A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

You may remind yourself frequently that for reasons beyond your control, it just wasn’t meant to be… but still, late at night as you find yourself in that transitional world between wakefulness and sleep, your mind wanders.  The imagery remains as fresh today as it was nearly 24 months ago, the longing sometimes even stronger.

There will always be a missing piece to the puzzle, never adequtely filled no matter how many attempts we may make to replace it.  We could spend thousands of pounds and travel far and wide to discover a suitable sucessor.  But the question remains… “What if?”

You didn’t think I was talking about a *man* did you?  Pfft.

I didn’t pick either palette up (and I love them both) when they were available because there was simply TOO much from Dior Holiday that had made my wishlist.  I bit my lip as I told myself they were too expensive when I’d already Xmas hauled, a classic angel/devil shoulder combination.  On this occasion, I should have let the devil win.

And so it will remain for now, Dior Jazz Club palettes… the ones that got away.

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Do you have a sorry tale to tell of the Limited Edition item(s) you still wish you’d splurged on?

I’m a sun-protection devotee, not just for the products but also the theories and chemistry behind the idea of protecting yourself from sun exposure.  Throw in some tales of vitamin D deficiency and I can be hooked for hours.  Do I understand it all?  I wish… but choosing a reliable, safe sunscreen is probably one of the best favours you can do for your skin.  It’s worth the effort!

I’m the proud owner of around 2sq metres of sun-sensitive, freckled skin that turns pink at the merest hint of a sun ray and my (un)healthy interest in these products began a couple of years ago with the discovery of some of the fine sun protection products available to the Asian market.

I have a real fear of sunburn.  As a 9 year old, I was left bandaged across the back and shoulders, with daily visits to the hospital for blister-draining after a particularly nasty case of sunburn.  I own a slightly bizarre photo of me taken as an 11 year old… lying in bed, red as a beetroot mid-hallucination thanks to sunstroke.

Infact, nearly every holiday snap shows those tell tale burn lines on my bare shoulders.  It was a recurring theme throughout my childhood, teens and even early twenties until I realised that I simply couldn’t get away with exposing my skin to the sun in the same way my friends could.

I make my poor parents sound neglectful… they weren’t at all.  Who wanted to be the fat kid swimming in an oversize t-shirt and hat whilst your olive-skinned mates frolicked around in bikinis?  Not me!  Those sun defences bit the dust as soon as I was out of eyeline and we just didn’t understand the importance of re-applying SPF regularly back in those days.

For the month of June, Lipglossiping.com is going to putting an emphasis on sun protection.  I want to learn more about the different chemicals/mineral options available and what they mean in laymans terms.  I want to fully understand all this UVA/UVB stuff and look beneath the obvious differences between an SPF15 and an SPF50+.  I wanna discuss some of the options currently available on the market and whether or not they’re up to the job.

I want to discover some of the easiest-to-wear sunscreens that don’t work against my makeup or skin type and I want to finally decide for myself whether the convenience of easily-absorbed sunscreen is outweighed by the potential health risks associated with chemical protection.

Phew!  I hope you don’t mind coming along for the ride?!

It may not have escaped your attention (astute lot that you are) that Lipglossiping.com has been suffering from some loading and slowness issues.  Infact, it’s been pretty poor since that initial long downtime back in December/January.

I kept thinking that perhaps it would get better and accepting temporary solutions to save myself the hassle and anxieties that moving webhosts brings.  But it’s time to face the simple truth that it’s getting worse, not better.

I’ve now signed up to a new hosting company based in the UK and am currently migrating all files and databases over to the new service.  Hopefully you won’t experience any changes in uptime while this is happening (heck, it can’t get much worse can it?) but if the site does disappear for a day or two, at least you’ll know why.

I hope that this is the last time I’ll have to do this for a long while… I’ll be biting my nails that I don’t lose anything in the big move.

Thanks for your patience, I know it’s been a pain in the arse.

Perhaps a bit deep for a Tuesday morning but I was thinking last night about how I used to use and wear makeup.  From that first lilac eyeshadow through to the morning of my wedding, I wanted makeup to turn me into some dramatic adaptation of myself.  Infact, barely even myself… I wanted it to work miracles and turn me into a fairytale version of that reflection I saw in the mirror.

I vividly remember the excitement before my bridal makeup trial and being so hugely disappointed afterward that I’d agreed to pay some chick £70 to make me look like myself, but with lipgloss.  Not that she was bad at her job, she was pretty good… but it was my first experience at letting someone else loose on my face and God only knows what I really expected or wanted from that poor makeup artist.

Nowadays, I’m pretty horrified if after applying my makeup I look like anything other than what I’d normally see in the mirror.  Infact, I’d take it as a sure-fire sign that I’d well and truly overdone it!

I think it goes to show that my formative years were spent poring over too many before/after makeovers from between the pages of Just Seventeen magazine.  Makeup can have a dramatic affect on your appearance… but I wonder what age I was when I realised that I didn’t want it to make me look like someone else anymore.

Or maybe… I’ve just settled for second best?

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Do you wear your makeup like a (beautifully applied) mask or just to dampen your flaws and accentuate your best bits?

We all like to flap our gums about beauty, some of us more than others *cough* and for once, someone is interested in what we have to say!

The Instyle team are descending upon the Selfridges Beauty Hall today to invite customers to share their best beauty tips and advice for collation and inclusion in a special September issue!

If you can’t make it to the Oxford Street store today, head on over to the facebook page that’s been set up for the task and leave your pearls of wisdom on the wall (in lipstick of course!)

You all know that I’m a touch brow-obsessed, so here’s my advice (that I wish I’d given to my younger self!)

Never underestimate the impact that well-shaped eyebrows have on your appearance. If unsure, seek professional advice from your salon and try to resist the urge to overpluck!

If you have a snippet to share, come back and let me know which gem is yours in the comments!

I’m a foundation floozy.  A total sucker too ‘cos I can never resist a new release that promises me the skin of an angel.

I’m currently trialling one that’s almost ticking all the right boxes for me (review coming v. soon!) but in putting this particular product through its paces, it’s made me realise just how demanding my requirements are for the perfect base.

Holy Grail foundation, dude… wherefore art thou?

Infact, not only are my requirements kinda demanding… I’m not sure they’re wholly realistic.  A bit like the images used to sell us the foundations then?  Touche.

My Holy Grail foundation, let’s break it down…

1. Thou shalt give medium coverage

I don’t want heavy coverage from a foundation, I want *even* coverage… it needs to give enough oomph to subdue the redness, dampen down the blotchiness and remove all traces of motley bits.  So, I want a mask… but like an invisible one ok?  Or someone else’s face.

2. Thou shalt not stick to my eyebrows

I have an eyebrow/foundation issue.  Yes, I know the simplest answer would be to keep my foundation the hell away from my eyebrows.  But I like to apply my base in about 15 seconds flat with minimal fuss.  Infact, in an ideal world… I’d like my base to apply itself.  Some foundations spot my eyebrows from a mile away and make a direct beeline so that when I look in the mirror, my face is bare and my eyebrows? Skin coloured.

3. Thou shalt not make me matte

I don’t do matte very well.  I have dry/combo skin… my nose gets oily by lunchtime but I’m ok with that (hello powder), I’m not ok with looking like I’ve been dug up.  Matte makes me look…. lifeless.  I want the glow (not the chip pan glow) but the “oooh la la” satin glow ok?

4. Thou shalt not squat in my pores

I have cheek pores that you could fall into and never escape from.  Some foundations make them appear smoothed over… some foundations install neon signage around each one to ensure they’re visible from the International Space Station.

5. Thou shalt glide on with fingers/brush/sponge/elbows if necessary

I can’t be doing with finickity foundations.  I want my Holy Grail foundation to apply happily with whatever utensil I have at hand.  I already have too many bases that look amazing only when applied with a coral reef sea sponge dampened with virgin water from iceberg B-15A on a Tuesday afternoon.

6. Under no circumstance shalt thou oxidise in my presence

Nothing worse than applying a perfect shade only to discover you’ve been oompah loompah’ed by tea time and your colleagues left wondering if their transition lenses are playing up.

Oh.. and finally?

If you don’t last longer than a chocolate button caught in Leila’s line of sight then it doesn’t matter how good you are at all the other stuff.  You fail.

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What are your foundation pet peeves?  Have you found your Holy Grail base?

We all have a few of these in our collections right?

Those products that we wanted for ages… thought about more frequently than food or sex and then when we eventually found ourselves clutching them in our hot little hands, wished we’d opted for those other thoughts instead.

Here are my current disappointments.

1. Too Faced Absolutely Invisible Candlelight Powder – £18.50

I have a bit of a ‘thing’ for finishing powders, the right one really makes a huge difference.

The reviews for the Too Faced Absolutely Invisible Candlelight Powder are generally pretty good but it’s just a bit too sparkly for me.  I’ve tried using different brushes to ensure that I’m not being too heavy handed but I still don’t dig the effect.  It’s a nice powder… but the (albeit minute) particles of glitter seem to catch the light in a sparkly rather than glowy way.

2. Make Up For Ever HD Blush – £21.75

Can’t. Blend. It.

It doesn’t look atrocious but it doesn’t look as well-blended as my other blushes and whilst I’m fully aware, confident even, that the problem lies more with my (lack of) skillz than the product… this knowledge doesn’t make me like it more.

Shame ‘cos the shades I own are gorgeous… *sigh*

3. Benefit Erase Paste Concealer – £18.89

I always thought that Erase Paste was for under the eye area and Boi-oing (or whatever it’s called) was for blemishes but for the life of me, I cannot make this work on my dark circles.  It cakes and gathers in any fine lines within an hour of wear.  It may be heavy duty in terms of coverage but I’m not willing to comprimise about 10 years of my youth for a bit of concealing.

I’ve tried: warming it up before using/buffing it in with a brush/patting it on with my ring finger/setting it with powder/a combination of all the above!  Disappointing.

4. Illamasqua Rich Liquid Foundation – £21.50

I bought this with the hope of mixing it with a moisturiser and really being able to control the amount of coverage I achieved.  It gives the ‘death mask’ look when worn alone… which is fine for a night out but unwearable (for me) during the day.  I’m fine with this though, I expected it… what I’m not fine with is the fact that everytime I try to use it, it’s separated and takes about 5 minutes to combine with vigorous shaking.

What products in your collection do you wish you loved more?  Are you like me and can’t bring yourself to ditch them incase you suddenly get an a-ha moment?

~ If you click READ ALL (next to LATEST POSTS) you will be directed to a second ‘home page’ which will display all posts in the old-style scrolling layout.  You can update your bookmarks and access this page by default if you prefer.  Alternatively, you can subscribe to Lipglossiping.com through a reader or by email and view the site as RSS formats it.

Please note: “Featured Posts – READ ALL” displays only the ‘featured’ posts in the old-skool layout.

~ We have tweaked the colours and the labels (most obviously from red to blue) which will hopefully inject some of the previous site’s colour scheme into the template and increase familiarity.

I hope these changes are considered an improvement.

I know I’m not alone in scouring the net for images of beauty to inspire me.

I love nothing more than coming across a visual that makes me stop dead in my tracks and just… absorb.  A recent one that spoke to my makeup-loving heart was one of Givenchy‘s Spring campaign images.

The eyes, the lips… the pink, the orange… even the wispy hair… just perfect!

Another of my favourites and instantly recognisable.  Sonya Kukainis embodies the natural, polished beauty that BECCA Cosmetics sums up for me.

My personal favourite from the Illamasqua campaigns (and there are a lot of beautiful images to choose from!) is this one from the most recent Spring/Summer Toxic Nature collection.  It’s frivolous, powerful and total eye-candy in one crazy package.

And finally, a classic from 2008 and Shu Uemura‘s Tokyo Lash Bar… I remember being quite awestruck at practically all the lash images released around that time from the brand.  Amazing!

Do you have some favourites?  Would any of the above make your list?

Hello ladies,

I really appreciate ALL feedback on the new site, both good and bad because I recognise that a). you’ve taken the time to leave it and b). you’ve (mostly) broken the bad bits to me gently!  Thank you x

I want to address a couple of things and I’ll try not to ramble too much…

Ads

There are actually LESS ads on the site now than before the redesign.  Previously, the homepage contained an ad below each post, 1 in the sidebar and the leaderboard ad under the header.  Now the homepage contains the leaderboard ABOVE the header (I wanted to separate it further from the content) and 1 in the sidebar.  The in-post ones now only display inside the ‘actual’ posts.

I wanted to clarify that one so you don’t think the redesign was some cynical money-making opportunity!

Personalisation

I like to think that the site personality comes more from the content than the boxes that surround it but all I can really tell you is that I’ve injected SO much thought into choosing clear fonts, contrasting labels, a ‘snazzy’ header that actually represents my obsession and trying to increase interactivity with you guys in the form of linkbacks to you (if relevant) through comment listings etc.

What I’m getting at is that I didn’t just pick a generic corporate style template and click ‘activate’.  I picked a basic layout design, then ripped it to shreds and started again.  It’s got personality by the bucketload, I can’t help it if I’m a bit boring! 😉

I wanted you to have access to as many posts at a single glance as possible.  This was the trade off between the original scrolling design and how it looks now.  To be completely honest, I struggled like hell with this one.  Do I give you all an extra click or more content at a glance?  The thing that swung it for me was being told that doing it this way *should* reduce site load time.  With my previous design, it was having to load anything up to 20 fullsize images with every load, this way… it caches the thumbnails after the first load and that’s it.  Having said that, I’m aware that my site load time has been shit for about three days now and I’m just about ready to move hosts again.

Professionalism

I’m not sure if it’s considered a bad thing to have a professional looking blog.  I can’t quite tell from your comments.  But my personal feeling on this is that when I dedicate a minimum of 3/4 hours on this labour of love each day… hell yeah I want it to look as “professional” as possible!

Busyness and Background

Yes, there’s more content in a smaller area (on the homepage)… hopefully, there is enough spacing, labelling and separation for things to be quite straightforward once the dust settles and you get used to looking to different parts of the page to achieve/view different things.  I’m going to give that some time to “settle in” before considering any changes incase the busyness view is influenced by the fact that it’s all very new and unfamiliar.

The background… I know that my site is associated with a white background.  2 years ago, the site really stood out by being so minimalist in the beauty-blogging community but now, I feel that the overall look has become quite generic.  I’ll never be one for teacups, garlands and textured backgrounds and want something different again.  If I’ve achieved that (even if you’re not sure about it!) then hand on heart, on a personal level – that makes me happy.

However, I’ve always been the one to point out that black backgrounds are less user-friendly for reading text (which is why I’ve retained a white background for the content!)  I think this is another aspect of the redesign that I’ll look at again in a few weeks.

Overall

Ok, I can tell I’m starting to ramble so will leave it there.  The new site is my baby and like every proud Mum I want to show it off and I want you all to think it’s not a cabbage patch doll.  BUT sometimes, babies take a while to grow into their features.  I hope you give mine a little bit of time to develop, it’s your views I care about most of all and I am listening.

Welcome to the new look Lipglossiping.com – I had a mini heart attack when I flicked over to the new design.  Properly too, my fingers tingled as I got flashbacks from Christmas!

Thankfully, everything still seems to be in place with no major casualties (apart from my blogroll which I’ll update next week).

I do hope you like it and I’m sure it will take a bit of getting used to… it’s a completely new navigation system but you should get enough of an idea from the front page as to whether or not the featured posts hold any interest for you before clicking through to read them in full.

Plus, you get the tabs over on the right to browse through some of my most popular posts, play russian roulette with a random pick and see who’s commenting on what!

Other features include tags and categories that are much clearer to read and easier to access whatever it might be that you’re looking for!

And let’s not forget the most important feature of all.  The chick up there… there, in the header!  She applies her lipstick when you hover over her! *dies*

*deep breath* go on, let me have it… do you hate it?

You may have noticed that things are looking a bit wonky around here.  Ad placements a bit skewed, links appearing and disappearing?  Well, that’s because Mr. L is working tirelessly on a site redesign and I’m hoping to go live with it later in the week!

I’m a little bit excited (understatement) because I’ve wanted the site to be more navigable for a long time.  There’s so many posts now and a lot of them never see the light of day thanks to a rubbish category nav system.  Hopefully, this will soon be improved, though if you’re like me, it might take some getting used to.

I hate it when websites change, I’m used to clicking on certain buttons to achieve certain things and when I get the rug pulled from under me, I’m not a happy bunny.  I hope you like the changes and get used to them quickly!

Also, I’m attempting a FAQ page… and this is where you come in.  Do you have any burning questions? About the site? Blogging?  Would it be useful to know things like my shade matches in foundation?

Anyway, if you have a question – I’d love for you to take a minute to pop it in the form below and hit send, it’s all completely anonymous (which I’ll probably regret!)

Thank you, I appreciate it (unless you just took the opportunity to mean ;))

When the new site goes live, please let me know if you notice any problems or bugs and I’ll get my whip out.