NYX Slim Lipliners - a reawakening

Since my recent discovery of the wonderstuff that is Lanolips 101 ointment (reviewed here), and my lips are no longer a scabby, flaky, lip product  no-man’s-land, I am now finding that I can start to dig out all of the old lip products that I thought would never again see the light of day. First on the agenda was to get out my old NYX slim lipliners.

I've had some of these for over a year – yeah, yeah, I know, germ warfare! – but there’s only me that uses them, and I gave them a good sharpening to get rid of any exposed-to-the-air manky bits that may have formed, before I used them again. I’m not made of money, yano?

Anyway, I have a very limited selection of these seeing as I couldn’t wear them before; I have a feeling they will now be top of the shopping list for future purchases because they are divine. My first purchase was frankly one of desperation – I so wanted to wear a red lip, but could never get the bloomin’ stuff to stay on because I had to wear such a ridiculous amount of lip balm underneath. I’d seen Makeup Geek use a NYX slim lipliner in Deep Red underneath Revlon’s matte lipstick in Really Red, and it looked amazing. It worked a dream on me too, although it took about two hours of preparation (not an exaggeration) and my lips did not thank me in the morning.

Flushed with relative success, I then went a bit mad and bought four more; and the problem was similar to the Deep Red one I already had - they sucked what little moisture I had from my lips, leaving them with a downright nasty texture after about five hours of wear. I knew I was fighting a losing battle, so they remained relegated to a drawer. UNTIL NOW.

Here they are – they are great to wear on their own (they make a great alternative to a lipstain when applied lightly), under lipgloss/balm for a shinier look, or under lipstick for extra drama and staying power. I bought mine from NYX Cosmetics directly, for the princely sum of £3.00 each.

MUST RESIST BUYING THEM ALL.

L-R: Nectar, Beige, Natural, Deep Red, Prune

Can anyone recommend some other cheap lipliners that might not hate my lips quite as much?

Jen 

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Lanolips – the start of a beautiful relationship

As a dry skin sufferer of many years, I find that I can (and do) usually do something about the skin issue on my face, but my lips (although just as dry as the rest of my face) get a bit neglected. I tend to buy whatever lip balm is on offer in Boots, and slick a bit onto my lips whenever I remember (usually causing a chain reaction of lip-balm application amongst the ladies in the office!). But I don’t exfoliate them, and I even occasionally succumb to absent-mindedly peeling off the dry skin whenever I am deep in thought (which admittedly, isn’t very often).

So, to summarise; they are dry, cracked, chapped, and also sometimes (due to over enthusiastic peeling) bleeding and scabby. Lovely.

Enter: Lanolips.

I jumped onto the Lanolips bandwagon fairly recently; after having seen rave reviews of the 101 Ointment by several beauty bloggers that I follow religiously. I less-than-enthusiastically hauled my sizeable corse down to my local Boots and, amazingly, they had some of the ointment in stock. While I was there, I noticed that they had some tinted versions too, and ever the sucker for shiny pretty things, I picked up one of these in the colour Apples.

Wow. Just……….. wow.

After only one day of application of the 101 ointment, my lips were smooth, plump and moisturised – a feeling that lasts even after the ointment has long since worn off/soaked in. It’s a bit of a weird application – there is no applicator attached to the tube itself, just a little hole which dispenses this luscious gorgeousness, so it’s a finger-application job. All to the good though, as it could do with a bit of warming up before putting it onto your gob. This stuff is thick.

The tinted version is not quite as plumping and smoothing, but only compared to the original 101 ointment – it still beats all other tinted lip balms hands down.

Me being me, I then got more, with back-ups – including the colours Mulberry and Rose (Mulberry is a limited edition one that I got free when I ordered from Zuneta.com). They are so good, I even felt inspired to send an email to them to thank them, like the gushing, over-emotional basket case I am. I have added Rhubarb and Dark Honey to my wishlist, too.

Lanolips 101 ointment (15g) is currently available from Boots.com for £11.22 (yeah I know – weird price), while the tinted versions (12.5g) are £8.16.

Onto the pics:

L-R: Mulberry, Apples, Rose

My favourite by a country mile is Mulberry (damn you limited editions!) as the cooler tones turn my lips into slightly plummy-coloured kissable unctuousness.

Has anyone else been converted to the ways of the Lanolips ointment? I'd love to hear your opinions.

Jen

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Products I am loving - April 2012

Yes, I know April hasn't finished yet. But seeing as I don't have anything new to test out for the rest of the month, I thought I would share a few of my April favourites with you all!

Shampoo: Tresemme Vitamin E Moisture Rich for dry/damaged hair
Conditioner: V05 Give Me Moisture Conditioner / Nourish Me Truly conditioner (they’re on two-fer in Boots at the mo….!)
Styling products: the old faithful CHI Silk Infusion Silk Restructuring complex
Shower Gel: Johnson’s 24 hour Extra Rich Bodywash
Body moisturiser: Body Shop Brazil Nut body butter – smells good enough to eat but PLEASE DON’T
Deodorant: Mitchum Powder Fresh for women – the only one that can cope with such a Sweaty Betty as me
Cleanser: No. 7 Radiance Boosting Hot Cloth Cleanser
Exfoliator: Body Shop Vitamin C microdermabrasion
Primer: Erm, none……… I’ve been putting a bit of tinted moisturiser on (No. 7 Triple Protection TM in Fair) before foundation for extra coverage, as I am having a rubbish-skin month
Foundation brush: Crown Brush flat bronzer, used as a stippling brush

Foundation: Diorskin Nude in shade 020
Concealer: NARS cream concealer duo in Vanilla/Honey
Powder: NARS loose powder in Flesh
Blusher: NARS powder blush in Gilda – although you have to use a light hand, it gives a fantastic natural-looking flush to the cheeks
Bronzer: none – it’s only April! Maybe in June………
Highlighter: NARS illuminator in Copacabana
Eyeshadow base: MAC paintpot in Painterly
Eyeshadows: NARS eyeshadow trio in Ramatuelle (swatched here)
Eyeliner: MAC Fluidline in Blacktrack; NYX retractable eye pencil in Black (for a cheapy (£4.00), this one is brill – doesn’t go green and patchy in the slightest!)
Curler:  No. 7 – had it for donkey’s, it could probably do with some new pads because it has started crimping my lashes rather than curling them……!
Mascara: L’Oreal Voluminous in Carbon Black; MAC Mascara X
Lipstick: Chanel Rouge Coco in Mademoiselle (swatched here); MAC amplified crème in Shy Girl
Lipgloss: NYX Juicy Red; Lanolips Lip Tint in Mulberry (limited edition – review coming soon)
Nail Colour: Bog standard Natural Collection clear polish – can’t be bothered at the moment, and my nails are in too poor a condition to take a bashing with heavy colour!

What products have you been loving recently? 

Jen

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My Browns of York experience

Mr. S and I recently took a trip to York – not, I confess, to soak up any culture that might be lying about but rather to buy things cheaply. Yep, we went to the McArthur Glen outlet.

I came out a bit shell shocked, after having found NOTHING I wanted in the Cosmetics Company outlet shop, but thankfully hubby took pity on my plight and bought me a gorgeous Paul Smith bag that I have been lemming after for ages.

Anyway, determined not to come home without some form of beauty product, we wandered into York town centre and happened across Browns, a decent-sized department store type thing, and I of course immediately gravitated towards the twinkly lighting of the cosmetic counters.

I needed some Double Wear Light, so I toddled over to the Estee Lauder counter to buy me a top-up of this fabulous not-quite-foundation. And there was where I encountered the lovely Marie.

Now if you have read my previous post about Rouge Coco Mademoiselle you will realise that I am not traditionally a big fan of makeup counter assistants. I rethought that prejudice a little in a recent Boots trip, but Marie was the icing on the cake. A petite little thing, she could not have been more lovely.

There was a Gift With Purchase promo on - I’m guessing it’s on everywhere? – and Marie pointed this out to me because she “didn’t want me to miss out” on £45 worth of free stuff. So I mooched round the counter a bit, and picked up their Double Wear liquid eyeliner in Black, so that I could qualify for the promo. Her little face dropped, as she then informed me that they had just run out of that particular product. But – and this is where I was pleasantly impressed – she took my details, let me have the GWP anyway, and said they would post out the eyeliner as soon as their next shipment came in. She then gave me a card with her contact details on, as well as those of her colleague, in case I wanted to get in touch in the meantime. Throughout the transaction she was very polite, extremely helpful, appeared knowledgeable, and also seemed to be enjoying her job.

Now I imagine quite a few of you are currently thinking, “Yeah – and?”………….. and if you are lucky enough to come from a place where this sort of customer service is the norm, then I envy you. None of the assistants I have ever spoken to before have been a patch on this lady – and I was beginning to seriously believe that good customer service on makeup counters was a myth.

But now……….. MYTH = BUSTED.

Thank you, Marie, for re-instilling me with a little bit of faith in humanity.

Jen

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NARS eyeshadows - a piteously small collection

I confess; I don’t have many of these. Hardly any, in fact. My wallet protests vociferously every time I go on the NARS website and even think of putting anything in my shopping basket. However, I recently put some cotton wool in my ears, made sure there was a minimum distance of 10 metres between myself and aforementioned wallet and splashed out on an eyeshadow trio from the new Summer 2012 collection.

Ah, Ramatuelle – how I love thee. Not a first choice for any cool-skinned gal, but I’m so glad I went for this – the iciness of the silver more than outweighs the warmth of the peach and apricot colours.

The silver and peach are both shimmery, whereas the apricot is a matte shade and blends beautifully as a crease colour. Normally, Nars + shimmer = disastrous fall-out, but I am very impressed with these. Even without primer, they stay put for around five or six hours - I can eke it out to eight hours if I put them over my beloved MAC Painterly paintpot.

For the sake of completeness I have also added pics of the other two NARS eyeshadow sets I currently own (two! How does the make-up addict in me sleep at night? This frankly pitiful display needs improving, pronto). Top of the list of potential future additions is the Lhasa single – it looks like a beguiling combination of lavender and taupe and I MUST OWN IT SOON. 

Right, pics.

Ramatuelle trio - Summer 2012

Delphes trio - Fall 2011

Grand Palais duo - Fall 2011

Any others I should go for? 

Jen

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