Guerlain Christmas 2014 - Mereorites Perles D'Etoile

Christmas isn't Christmas (yes, I do know it's October, bear with me) without Guerlain's limited edition Meteorites.  After what was - for me - the relative disappointment with the design of 2013's Crazy Paris collection, this year's Coque d'Or collection is a return back to the beautiful design that I associate with Guerlain's Christmas collection.

The entire collection is themed around gold and red, and the Meteorites follow that right through from the gorgeous scalloped design around the tin, to the pretty red bow on the lid, this is a cute and pretty edition.

The bow is reflected again on the inside, on the red puff, which is an adorable touch.  The pearls are a bit different this year, however:

I can only see two colours instead of the usual five, and they're quite a bit warmer than the pearls in the last couple of editions, being heavily skewed towards the gold side:

There is, however, a surprising cranberry pink pearl in the tin this year:

I can see lilac, cranberry pink, bronze and white gold.  The perles are the regular size this year, but they are incredibly pigmented in comparison to previous years:

If you're worrying that this will make them unwearable, don't worry, the cranberry pink beads are few and far between, and the lilac and white gold/champagne shades are more in evidence in the tin than any other colour.  The coppery-bronze pearls add just a little shimmer to stop the powder from looking too flat or matte on the skin.

All in all this years perles are a winner for me, how about you?

Guerlain Meterorites Perles d'Etoile are available in-store right now at £37.50.

The Fine Print: Products shown this week are a mixture of purchases and PR samples.

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Coming this week ... Guerlain Christmas 2014!

... #It's the most wonderful time of the year ...

Nothing says Christmas in the Lippie household like the arrival of the Guerlain Christmas collection!  Over the course of this next week we'll be featuring all the picks of the beautiful, beautiful Coque d'Or collection.  Keep your eyes peeled!


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Urban Decay Black Eyeliner Collection

To say I like a bit of black eyeliner would be a mild understatement ... alongside my red lipsticks, I think a decent black liner would be my desert island item.  Well, alongside a full set of Zelens skincare, and a few bottles of Guerlain that is, but I digress ...

Anyhoo, I was superhappy when Urban Decay revamped their black eyeliner collection a few months ago,  Here we have 24/7 Velvet Liner in Black Velvet, a blacker version of their normal 24/7 eyeliner formula,  Ink for Eyes, a waterproof liquid liner, All Nighter, a deeply pigmented twist-up pencil, and a pot gel-liner.

Black Velvet is a sooty black liner, which is very soft and easily blendable.  Ink for Eyes isn't the blackest liquid liner that I have (that would be Illamasqua Abyss, which is unmissable), but it has a lovely thin felt-tip style applicator that is very easy to control.  All Nighter is probably my favourite of the four, being soft and incredibly black, and the nib is perfect for tightlining the upper lash line.  This simply does not budge once applied.  It's not quite as blendable as Black Velvet, but it's great for getting a strong graphic liner look, and it's excellent on the waterline.  It turns out that I'm not a massive fan of pot liners (they tend to dry out too quickly for my tastes, but this could be more of a reflection of the fact that I have about 30 eyeliners in regular rotation, lets face it) generally, but this is a good, highly pigmented and deeply black one.

All in all a fab and really very useful little collection of black liners. There's one for all tastes, and they all deliver.  I'll be backing up my All Nighter, I can tell you that ...

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In the Pink – with Bleach London DIY Dip Dye and Schwarzkopf Live Color XXL

By Tindara

Readers, I’m having a mid life crisis. As I write this there is a glinting sheaf of pink visible at the base of my Sunday morning top knot. Yes, in an effort to stave off middle-aged boredom I have dip-dyed my hair pink, and it took some doing. I have very dark hair, with little white or grey. Very lucky at 43, you might say, but since my somewhat failed teen experiments with bleaching, dyeing and straightening, I had resigned myself to my natural black-brown frizzy curls. Until earlier this year, when I started getting Keratin treatments on my hair.

Now I don’t love poker straight hair at all, like most people these days I favour a natural looking wave and after a week or two this is exactly how my keratin treated hair behaves. There is less body, definitely, but it has a nice shiny easy wave to it. And even better, I don’t really have to do anything to it except comb it and put a tiny blob of serum on it every few days. So far, so easy. But then I kept seeing people with great colours on their hair, marshmallow and pomegranate and mermaid blues and minty greens. A close friend dip-dyed her blond bob deep pink and purples and I was introduced to Bleach London by a friend on a forum. So pretty soon, I was dreaming of rainbow tresses, mermaid stripes, blue tips, pink and apricot waves, I wanted pastel colour, dammit.

I was due to have a keratin treatment in a few weeks and had done some research and knew I had to bleach and dye before the treatment. When I bleached my hair, I realised that pastel was going to be a bit of a task. I used Bleach London’s DIY dip dye kit. It was really easy to use, I recommend it, the blending lotion that you apply before the bleach really helped get a gradual effect from lighter to dark. Since my hair is so dark though, my first attempt made the ends a lovely auburn. This look great on it’s own, but it didn’t satisfy my need for bright colour. And when I put Schwarzkopf Live Color XXL Purple Punk over the auburn, it turned the ends a bright but deep cherry red, which was lovely but not exactly what I wanted.

After a couple of weeks letting my hair rest, I used another Bleach London kit to bleach the ends again. They turned out slightly brassy and wouldn’t really take a pastel dye; I tried Bleach London’s Rose and it just went from candyfloss pink to light orange within a few hours. So I chose Schwarzkopf Live Color XXL Shocking Pink to go over the top. Hey presto, proper bright pink ends. Probably, too soon, I had my usual keratin treatment with Alterity Studio in Covent Garden, and now I have straight hair with pink ends. My dip-dyed ends are now soft and shiny, and considering how worried I was that my hair might break after all the bleaching and dyeing, I think it looks pretty good. Not the neatest dip dye in the world but good.

I will continue to use a deeper colour while this keratin treatment wears off as bleaching can remove the effect of the keratin, I understand. I was also told by the lovely Carmen at Alterity Studio that it’s not recommended to dye your hair within two weeks of a keratin treatment either, so be warned, if you’re going to get some colour in your life. I may head to Bleach London and get something more pastel done before my next keratin treatment. If you want to see the results follow @Tindara on Twitter or @tindaras on Instagram.

Bleach London DIY Dip Dye is £7 and Schwarzkopf Live Color XXL is £4.

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Autumnal Tones from Barry M A/W Collection

By Emily

I've given in. I will no longer shiver because of my bare ankles every morning, I will not shun my cosy coats and thick socks because I refuse to believe it is no longer summer. You know, October.

Now that I've accepted it, I am ready to embrace all things Autumnal and Wintery - fireworks! Matching gloves and scarves! Bobble hats!

Every time I pop to a well-know chemist, I take a trip to the Barry M section just to see what's new! A few weeks ago I picked up some colours from their new Autumn/Winter collection which has a distintly spicy feel. My favourites (and the ones that ended up in my basket) were Cardamom and Paprika. Paprika is a really unusual reddy-brown. Not unlike the colour of a brick. Cardamom is a beautiful warm green, the likes of which I've not seen before. They are good at their colours those Barry M chaps.

Now, I have just moved house (STRESS) and it's the busiest season at work (DOUBLE STRESS) so I haven't really had much time for my nails in the last few weeks. But last night I treated myself to two coats of Paprika...it goes in really thick and glossy (as do all Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine polishes) and then because I am incapable of having one-colour nails I went for a quick diagonal effect on one feature nail using the striping tape and the Cardomom colour. Finally I added a line of simple gold studs by IZ Beauty of London, because I can't resist!


Are you a fan of Barry M? What's your favourite colour from their collection?


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