Liz Earle Sheer Pink Lip Shimmer Review

I got this product at the Liz Earle shop in the Victoria Quarter in leeds. The shop is cool, bright and airy and smells refreshing and uplifting.

While in the shop I sampled the fragrance I had been eyeing and after a long and hot shopping trip I can still smell it strongly on my wrists. I'll definitely be looking into that zesty scent when funds allow!

Anyway, onto the product we are here to review. Served in a tiny pale pink screw top pot emblazoned with the Liz Earle "science flower" as I call it, the name of the product is on the bottom of the pot and is not visible when looking at it normally. A little unusual but by the colour and shape it's fairly obvious what we will find inside.

Unscrewing the lid the product inside is slightly darker, more mauve than the pot itself but carries the same shimmer. Swatched on my (very pale) hand there is a subtle pinky shimmer but no obvious deposit of colour. After the initial swatch I guessed that the product wouldn't show up as colour on my lips, which is fine, but after applying it to my lips I was surprised to see that they do indeed look "pinker". Not having a lot of natural pigment to my lips I didn't expect this at all from such a sheer product. Perhaps the ingredients themselves bring out the colour. Hmm.

While we are on the subject of the ingredients, the product has a really interesting herbal smell, it is one I find pleasant but I admit I was surprised at how "savoury" the scent is compared to lip products I am used to. Upon arriving home I called up the Liz Earle website to check the ingredients as I could swear that the lip shimmer smells of basil! After checking though there is no basil in this product so I'm not entirely sure which of the ingredients I am picking up. The earthy herbal smell is a comforting one though and it smells like you are putting something good for your lips on rather than a cosmetic product, which I suppose is true!

Overall I'm already enjoying using this product. I hate how lipsticks leave a mark around the edge of your lips when you don't have time to maintain them, but having so little natural pigment I'm always looking for a maintenance free way to look a little more awake during the day or at work. This product will almost certainly enter my regular rotation right alongside my beloved lanolips.

Pictures: Myself looking a little worse for wear after being rained on and tired after running around leeds all day!

Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish review.

I received this product as a sample with the Botanical shine shampoo and conditioner that my sister got me as a present.

At first I was apprehensive about using a creme cleanser as I'm used to foaming products so for the first few times I used it in conjunction with my clinique face soap to get the squeaky clean feeling i'm used to.

Now I use the cleanse and polish on it's own unless i'm wearing my full makeup (As a nursery teacher I always wear natural looking but waterproof and budgeproof makeup when at work) in which case I remove it with my makeup remover and face wash before using the cleanse and polish, to make sure that the lovely ingredients in the Liz Earle manage to make their way into my pores and do their job as effectively as possible. 

Introduction to Liz Earle

If you aren't already familiar with the Liz Earle brand they are a British company, based on the beautiful Isle of Wight. Being British myself I always feel a little bit happier purchasing a product from a British brand, the products haven't traveled as far and as much as I love beauty products, I love the earth too! Along this vein Liz Earle's green credentials are incredible. The website Liz Earle   details this in full and I really recommend you go and have a look to marvel at how dedicated this brand is to keeping their impact on mother earth as delicate as possible. All too often brands seem to be paying not much more than lip service to the Green ethos but that is not the case here. Many of the ingredients are natural, properly natural, not merely tiny extracts drowned in a plethora of unpronounceable chemical substitutes, but real ingredients, well researched and applied with care and thought.

Taking all this into account it should come as no surprise that the products are not tested on animals and all of them proudly bear the leaping bunny symbol to evidence this. Given that the EU ban on cosmetic animal testing has been moved back to 2017! It's nice to know that some companies *actually* find better ways to produce a safe and high quality product instead of wittering about how important the issue is to them while busily not actually doing anything about it.

The product

The cleanser is a thick white cream that smells amazing. The smell is quite strong and after reading reviews some people find it takes time to get used to. Being a little OCD the incredibly strong and clean scent of this fills me with satisfaction and joy from the get go and I had no reservations about rubbing it right into my skin, all the while imagining those lovely butters and oils soaking into and cleansing my pores.

After this I soak the muslin cloth in hot hot water, wring it out and polish off the cleanser. I usually use the cloth wet at the end because I don't like residue on my skin but if you suffer from dry skin on the face I can see that feeling comforting.

Results

I've only been using this for about a week now but my skin feels softer, and looks brighter. I've not had to exfoliate every day which I previously felt the need to do, as the polishing action of the muslin cloth gently exfoliates for me. The eczema patches around my hairline have reduced but I've been saving the best bit for last...

THIS STUFF HAS SHRUNK MY PORES

Oh yes it's true. After years and years of suffering from enlarged pores on my nose and cheek bones that made me feel miserable and unattractive without carefully blended face base, In just one week I now feel comfortable with only a light dusting of translucent powder.

I don't think I could love this stuff any more than I do. Liz Earle is now firmly on my christmas list and I can't wait to try more products from the line. As a lipstick lover I've got my eye on the pink lip shimmer as I'm always on the lookout for more lovely lip products and I prefer to buy them from companies that hold the same values I do.

In Summary

Everything I have tried from this range so far has delighted me and I'm already excited about the brand's first steps into colour with their upcoming face base launch (details on the website).

Finally, to prove that my pores are indeed better off, here is a picture of me, taken today (while suffering heavily with allergies at that), NOT wearing my usual full face of makeup thanks to Liz Earle.

Taken on iPhone

Eyeliner

Please forgive the strange expression, this eyeliner was so hard to photograph!

Experimenting with cats eye style eyeliner today. I always have flicks but rarely do I do the full cats eye shape, I love it but it takes more time than I usually have for my makeup. I always thought I was incapable of doing it right, but I took the time to do it carefully and methodically, pressing a gel with a flat ended brush right up against the lashes and then finishing off the line with a sweep of GOSH liquid eyeliner. Looks quite nice I think.

Quick Cinema FOTD

Origins liquid lipcolour review

Place holder post for review.

Colour "Really Rosy" applied over my bare lips. Moisturising, non sticky, fresh and minty. Quit pigmented, my natural pigment is very low. No other makeup on in this picture. Sorry about that!

YSL Singulier Dior Addict Lipstick

You can totally tell how bad my hayfever is in these photos XD

Anyway, some long overdue reviews. 

YSL Mascara singulier (waterproof version) is fantastic. It's the lovliest mascara i've ever used. At first I hated it because the brush spiked me and the formula was wet and useless. After a while it became amazing. I'm used to the brush now so I don't spike myself in the eye anymore. Buy it. It's wonderful, my eyelashes are awful but with this I can actually see them!

I choose Dior addict lipstick in shade "Millie" which is a mauvey colour and I love it because it's perfect to stop my lips looking so deathly. I think it's the colour they would look naturally if I had any sort of pigmentation to my skin. Goes on smooth, doesn't dry out my lips like my precious MAC sweetie does, lasts a surprisingly long time for a soft lipstick.

I've gone without make up for two days now...

and I'm not lazy about my makeup. I feel hideous without it. So then, what changed? I hear you cry, and where can I buy this for myself!

The oddest thing is that the past few days wearing no make-up I've had people come up and specifically tell me how well I look, how nice my skin is. It's like an alternate universe!

Trying to figure out what on earth I've done to make my skin even in tone and shrink my pores all of a sudden I came to the conclusion it was a combination of things.

1. Massisvely sun sensitive I've started layering factor 50 face protector (boots soltan) over my clinique dramatically different moisture gel. I have oily skin with patches of desert and rapidly forming early wrinkles and this seems to have done wonders.

2. I've been a good girl and taking my antihistamines properly. I have allergies, all the allergies so i'm supposed to take three antihistamines a day, this gets tedious and expensive, sometimes I'm naughty.

3. I've been "power eating". Determined not to get sick during my final school placement I've been eating a lot of different kinds of nuts and seeds, oat crackers, dried fruit and cheese for lunch instead of normal sandwiches. I'm vegetarian so to up my protein i've chosen to eat more beans and pulses. Normally I get sick immediatley on entering a new school, I have a poor, damaged and ravaged immune system, this time I'm really REALLY trying to give it a boost!

Here's the mandatory photo then,  sorry for the yellow tinge, the lights here are so odd! Without makeup on I can see the couple of freckles on my jaw. I hate them because it doesn't seem a sensible place for freckles!

 

 

Me this morning after a long walk in the heat and surprisingly un-shiny!

Oracles of beauty - the little pink powder

Well done if you've already guessed what I'm about to discuss, those little tubes and pots of brightly coloured pink, ripe with the promise of revealing hidden secrets. Like the real oracles of ancient greece however I'm inclined to think of their predictions as deliberatley vague to provide the illusion of mystery.

All right all right I'll get to the point. This outbreak of colour change "shifts to the most perfect pink for YOU" products that simply refuses to go back to the mists of the 80's from which it crawled. I hate the way they use science, not complex science mind you, science we've all done in our fabulous free education, to attempt to baffle us into believing many ridiculous things, as I shall demonstrate below...

The products all claim to use "the pH in your skin" to adjust their colour. We will start by dissecting just this one claim. Let's assume that this is correct and the products do react to pH, by no means an impressive feat, red cabbage and Phenolphthalein can perform this circus trick and with their clear to pink spectrum it wouldn't surprise me if the chemical in these products was of similar origin or makeup.

Let's have a closer look then, pH is a measure of acid/alkaline. 7 in the middle is neutral. Stomach acid being the strongest acid at 1 and bleach the strongest alkali at 13. The general idea - that we got from school anyway - was that alkalis (at the levels most people would come into contact with) were far more dangerous than acids. Our skin is slightly acidic at pH 5.5. Looking at the way Phenolphthalein works i'd wager whatever chemical they use is very sensitive to slight variations around pH 5-6 with the pink darkening towards the more alkali end.

Indicators are a fairly basic, but visually impressive science and i'm not averse to their use as an exciting and entertaining product, I love science, I love pink, these are normally something i'd be all over. But no, what I don't like about these products is the way they heavily imply that whatever pink it turns is your OMGSUPERSECRETMOSTPERFECTESTJUSTFORYOUSPECIALSNOWFLAKE.

The product changes colour, it reacts to the pH in your skin, pH has nothing to do with tone or what suits you, the lipstick/gloss/blush CHANGES COLOUR - that is awesome in and of itself, I don't need to be told that it knows what suits me better than my own eyes do, I'm not going to buy it for fashion advice, If I buy it at all it's because it uses science and changes colour.

Lush Jackie Oates review

I enjoyed Lush's previous tint offering in light pink, but it was far too dark for my skin and I had to water it down with moisturiser so much it was hardly worth the effort. This new ivory colour is much better. I still mix it with my factor 50 to make the colour more like my real skin though, but as suncream is something I wear every day that isn't a problem, it's just combining two steps in one.

I still powder over this as I find it does next to nothing to stop oil breaking through.

It's not unreasonably priced at 7.50 but that does make me question lush's claims that you can use it straight as a foundation. The formula is a very thick cream, and in such a small jar (the same size as their lip scrubs) I wouldn't want to use it straight for a whole host of reasons. I mix a dab (on the end of one finger) in with a dab of sunblock and find that it gives skin tone improvement over my whole face.

While I do like this product i'm not sure if I would repurchase, my card details went missing in the big lush hack that occured a few months ago now, I bought from them in november and was not at all impressed to find out they still had my card details and information stored in february, It took 40 days for me to get my bank card back after the big fiasco.

Having finally got my card back and thinking everything was fine now, I bought this little pot in store a few days ago. Later I found that my card had been flagged as "retain" to shops, meaning that it had been flagged as stolen by my bank. Thinking the cash machine would tell me what was wrong was a mistake, the machine ate my card. Santander are now sending me a new card, but it will take 10 working days and will be sent to my parents address (I live away from home at university) meaning I have to travel across the country - without a bank card - to get it back.

Now, obviously i'm a bit miffed that my bank flagged my card as stolen when I didn't report it stolen, and then didn't seem to have any idea why the machine ate my card when I called, but once again i'm stuck with no access to my money because the banking world doesn't think Lush can be trusted with card details and when I have to commute to work no fancy bath product is worth sacrificing my card for.

Tangle Teezer review

I've been wanting to try this for a while, the beads on the bristles of my tigi bedhead brush have started to come off and I was worried about my hair being damaged. I picked up the compact version so I can carry it around in my bag without the bristles getting bent out of shape, a problem I encountered frequently with the Tigi brush.

The tangle teezer is awkward to hold. Perhaps not the big one, but this one is for me. It does the job brilliantly, better than my ouchless tigi brush even but takes longer because it's so awkward to maneuver. The shape is fine, it's the fact that you don't have a handle that's a paid in the backside. I'm sure there's a very good reason for it being a palm brush and is probably part of the reason it tugs so little, but it means that to brush your OWN hair if your hair is very long begins to require an oddly large amount of shoulder and elbow flexibility.

The brush is small (shown here next to a body shop face compact) and I like the clip on bristle cover, though I do not like the hole in the middle of the brush. Oh no I do not like it Sam I am, it makes it feel to me like it will not work as well.

My hair is long, thick and curly and this brush does smooth it out and leave it managable and soft, though mercifully not flattened. The brush claims to work well on curly hair, and it does, but I have noticed that it has a straightening effect which I'm not a fan of but others might love. It can be a little awkward to get the tangles at the back of the neck, again a nice handle would be helpful here XD

All in all it's a nice brush, does what it says on the tin and doesn't ruin your hair, which should save you a fortune in cutting and maintaining, though I'm still not wholly convinced that 10 quid for what feels in your hand like cheep plastic is fair since my lovely Tigi brush only cost me a fiver.

Birthday!

It's my birthday soon and I've been thinking about all the lovely things I would buy for myself If I could. Teehee!

I'll share them, lucky you.

Urban Decay glide on cheek tint in lovely natural berry shade Greedy.
Urban Decay Lip Junkie lipgloss in sheerest wine Love Junkie
(I'm excited those two are available at debenhams now in the UK!)
A-England nail polish in shimmery pink Iseult and Sparkly blue Tristam

^_^ Pretties!

New Soap and Glory Might Mouth

I always read it as mighty mouse...

Expect to see two reviews of this one here. Lucky you!

Hanibee came back from a trip to posh posh posh makeupland and brought me this as a lovely geeft. I was of course, delighted, as lip products are my kryptonite (I turn weak at the knees at the very thought of them but they still seem to turn up in my bag, my room, everywhere! heehe heh)



Arriving in a beautiful, if oddly large, box Mighty Mouth is a new product with an old name. Why they changed it instead of just releasing this as-well I can't imagine, from what I hear the old one was fabulous. This candy pink moisturising gloss type thing claims to have lip plumping properties, which makes it the approx 97th (lol) soap and glory product to do so. Being one of the most reliable brands out there, this product is another that does exactly what it says on the tin. I've tried all S&G's lip plumpers and this one is my favourite by far. It feels more like lip care than lip gloss, which is exactly what I hoped for. I don't find it very glossy at all, though it lasts on the lips for a good length of time. It's not slippy but it's surprisingly stickyness free for the texture going on.

Vanilla creme scented Mighty Mouth comes in a long thin squeezy tube with an angled applicator. Simple and works well. You get 12ml which is about standard for this sort of gloss type whatsit and at around 7 quids I'd say it was excellent value for money. The product itself is sheer, very sheer. I'm fair myself and don't have a great deal of natural lip pigment and I can't see much of a colour difference, though it does avoid the grey look that clear lipglosses seem to give me. Winner!



Overall I adore this stuff and like all S&G i've tried so far I will definitely repurchase. Now if only they'd make a SPF moisturiser, preferably a high level like 30 or above, I'd be DELIGHTED.

S&G Mighty Mouth. Not a scrap of other makeup as it's nearly midnight. Sorry about that!

My Mission

So ladies, I know I'm not the only one out there who has self image issues, everyone has their problems with how they look, their body type, their weight, we can see anything as a problem for us.

Personally, I have never been a small girl, I have envied those who are, those toned ladies who are naturally slender, or those who work at it. I lack the time, confidence and motivation to go to the gym, so I try my hardest to eat well and get as much exercise as possible, which granted is much easier now I have a 14 month old to run after, but still I will never be skinny.

However I am very curvy, my measurements are 45-37-48, (bust, waist, hips in inches) as you can see there is a big difference between my waist and hip measurements, which means buying trousers is very difficult and often quite upsetting for me. I am an hourglass shape, which whilst considered 'desirable' by many, I find very difficult to live with. Even when buying tops I have to very carefully consider the material of the tops I'm looking at.

Clothes shopping is not something I enjoy and the main reason, above all these nigglings things, is the sizing in shops.

I remember when I was younger, a small was a 10-12, a medium was a 14-16 and a large was a 16-18. That's as much wiggle room as I ever remember.

Over the years these have swung wildly from one extreme to the other and I for one am sick of it.

I believe that shops should be forced, by trading standards to use a set of measurements, derived from the ACTUAL average taken from women across the country.

I believe that no one should feel uncomfortable going into any shop.

I believe that shops catered towards the short, tall, curvy, slender women should actually cater towards those body types, not just the so called 'ideal' amongst them.

I believe that when we buy a 16 in one shop, it should measure the same as the 16 we bought in the previous shop.

I believe we deserve honest sizes.

And above all -

I believe that no matter what your size, no matter what your body type, you should feel comfortable with yourself.

I know this is an issue that hits home with so many women across the country and even the globe and it is not asking a lot for some better labeling and honest sizes.

So what do I want to do about it? Well for starters I'd like to get you beautiful ladies sending in a snapshot of your gorgeous selves, holding a card/sign/scrap piece of paper up with your measurements in inches on.

I know I'm asking something that many will not be comfortable with but I want you to understand that I know how difficult this will be for many ladies out there and I feel the same. So to take the first step, here is my snapshot


If we can get a large enough number of us, showing that women have varied shapes and sizes and that we will no longer stand for shops insulting our intelligence with their falsified sizing, perhaps we can get noticed.

Please, please, please help me with this mission, it's not just about easier shopping, it's about making ourselves feel as gorgeous as we are, because no one should avoid certain shops due to embarrassment (like myself), or have to buy a 14 in this shop and a 20 in that one.

We make clothes look good, not the other way around!

Work Makeup ADVENTURE!

Okay, so I failed at the whole uploading that night thing, but, as promised here is a video!! (or two) allll about my work makeup, I know it's long but it's worth sticking with me as I make some suuuuuuuper crazy faces which are at least lolsome to observe, so heeere we go!



and part 2



Hope y'all enjoyed my ramblings, expect more to come! :D

Tonight!

Tonight I will post.... A MOTHERHUMPING VIDEO Y'ALL!!!

Or maybe two... I haven't decided. BUT I WILL POST I PROMISE!

Covet Covet Covet

The products I'm lusting after recently are all polishes.

China Glazes Frosty and White Cap have re-ignited my deep love for shimmery layering polishes. I want them so much!

These Polishes by A England are just stunning. I can hardly decide which ones i'm going to get first!

Estee Lauder Powder Foundation

Needing a replacement for my usual face powder I ordered Estee Lauder's Double Wear powder in "shell" the light/cool shade.

The reviews on the whole double wear line are incredible and though the powder is expensive at £25 it contains almost twice as much as my usual powder, not too bad at all!

Look out for a review as soon as it arrives!

MIA

In case you were all pining for us, there have been delays to updates recently due to laptop repairs. Also we are all being slowly poisoned by the house. Fingers cross it gets fixed soon!

First Give-away!

So, here we are the first give away!

The first give away item iiiiiisss *drum roll*


L'Oreal Resist&Shine Blackend Red!

Only used once, lovely colour, wears well for two days and has a very nice glossy finish. However the poor lady doesn't have a name! Quel'horreur!!

So get naming peeps, this one will be up until midnight on the 12th, please do enter as I don't want to condemn this luscious red to the bin!

So good luck and toodles!

Alternative?

So, I am what you would call the odd one out in my family, I have piercings and tattoos and I love the 'Alternative' culture. I get ragged on for having 'metal in my face' and drawing on my skin, it doesn't tend to bother me too much but now that I have chosen my career path as a tattoo artist I would like it if they stopped and actually thought about what my piercings and tats mean to me.

I see them as pieces of art on my skin and expressions of myself. With each new tattoo and piercing, I feel more like myself than I did before. I know many people get tattoos and piercings without really thinking about it, but I am of the opinion that if you're going to body mod, you best think long and hard about what you want to get, because once it's on you, it ain't coming off! Furthermore, it's kind of disrespectful to those people whose passion it is to help someone feel more comfortable with their body by adding art and piercings to it.

I guess I'm just tired of people making jokes about it like it's something offensive. I don't mod my body to offend anyone, I do it for myself. So even if it's not for you, please don't assume all of us do this to be 'in your face' or because we were drunk.

I paid for my tattoos and I love them.

My first large tattoo, I designed this one myself.

My second inside forearm tat, Bowie lyrics read, 'Lady Stardust San his Songs Of Darkness and Dismay' on a background of deep purple, stars and the Aladdin Sane bolt.

Got this one today, the final words of Ragged Robin from the Invisibles

The ISO symbol from Tron:Legacy

The Pain! Oh the pain! (GIVE AWAY!)

Good evening ladies and gents, tonight you are going to help me through one of the most painful activities a makeup and varnish addict like myself, can go through. For tonight... I give up some of my precious treasures, to you, THE INTERBUTTTUBES!

So the haul I have to go through is 95 polishes big! I will go through them, picking and choosing between my 36 purples, 8 glittery blacks and silvers, 15 blues and greens and 35 assorted others.

Some will go to my housemates, as they have dibbs, others will go to the bin and the rest will go up here, as a giveaway!

I have chosen 20 polishes to send to new, loving homes and I will post one a day starting tomorrow. To win the polish you must be a follower (yes it is a cheeky way to get you to read us, but who cares, free stuff right!!) and comment on the post giving the colour a new and fantasmic name! Easy peasy, nothin' to it, no worries, simples!

So tell your family, tell your friends, tell the cat next door, hell, tell that bum down the street, internet cafe's are free right!? Turn up tomorrow for the first of 20 giveaways!

toodles!

When you wish upon a...

Jar? Most cosmetic products offer far more than they provide, but in my experience Soap and Glory tend to be actually honest with their claims. Their pore shrink mask promises to temporarily shrink pores, and it does the job beautifully for example.

I've been eyeing the "wish upon a jar" 21 day collagen overhaul creme for a while, even though I'm only 23 i've noticed my skin looking less "awake", less finely textured, in other words - aging. Having quite oily but otherwise well behaved skin I have yet to develop any real wrinkles, but training to be a teacher (more stressful than actually being a teacher, or so I'm told) I'd like to keep that stress off my face.

I picked up a jar with my boots points today for £14. For a soap and glory product that's quite expensive, but for a jar of good moisturiser I find it a decent price. The little pot is a silver sphere and is really quite beautiful. Inside is a pinky pearl creme that is quite thick and almost serum like. Though I am comparing it to my everyday moisturiser the clinique one which is rather runny. The wish creme spreads quite easily and skin feels soft and with an ever so slight tackiness that I find makes makeup application so much easier.

The creme recommends that you remember to use a spf while wearing it due to the renewing effect on the skin, it also interestingly, recommends that you use it for the 21 days only and then wait three months before starting another jar. Sounds like powerful stuff, I can't wait to see how it goes!