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!