Dior Addict Lip Glow

Good Day Everyone,

A lovely friend of mine gave me a belated birthday present last week, the Dior Addict Lip Glow (as a side note don’t you just love belated birthday presents? It’s like birthday excitement all over again ;o), and I have to say… I am in love! I absolutely love it! Like, I love it so much that every time I take it out of its cardboard packaging (that’s right I’ve kept the cardboard!) I can’t help but smile and swoon over the beautiful packaging. Not only is the packaging stunning but the whole product experience is so luxurious that it makes me go weak at the knees... and I'm not joking!

Dior Addict Lip Glow on my Instagram

Now before I talk about the amazing packaging let’s talk about the product. Dior describe this as a color reviver balm or a color awakening lip balm. This means that the product provides the hydration of a lip balm whilst reacting with each individuals own lip chemistry to enhance and bring out the natural pink undertones of the lips, resulting in a beautiful rosy pink flush of colour… a kind of your lips but better effect. This customisation means that the lip balm looks different on different skin tones and people as everybody’s lip chemistry is unique to them. This product is to be used on bare lips so that it can react with the lip’s natural chemistry.

 

The Lip Glow has a subtle minty sweet scent that is very pleasant and wears off pretty quickly after application. The lip balm has a soft pale pink colour that is quite sheer, as you can see from the swatch on my arm, but the colour that it creates on my lips is much more intense. I guess that’s where the lip chemistry comes into play. 

Very sheer wash of colour but don't let that fool you

This product turns my lips the most beautiful rosy pink colour ever (I couldn’t get my lip photo to do it justice as the colour is rosier and more even than it is in my photo, and I've said it before, my lips are not my best feature). The colour is not a red-y pink or an orange-y pink but simply a true rosy pink. The lip balm doesn’t have any shimmer or glitter in it but it does leave a beautiful sheen on my lips. Perfect for those natural no makeup makeup days. I can imagine a lot of male models using this product to bring out the natural pink undertones of their lips without looking like they’re wearing a lip product. That’s how subtle and natural the effect is. 

Above: bare lips, below: Dior Addict Lip Glow applied

 The texture of the lip balm is incredibly luxurious. It’s as creamy and smooth as butter (better than the Revlon Lip Butters) and glides on effortlessly. It leaves my lips feeling moisturised, plumped, incredibly soft and beautifully flushed. The lasting power of this effect is about 4-5hrs, depending on what I eat or drink. This means that I do have to reapply this two or three times throughout the day to maintain that moisturised feeling but that’s the same for most lip balms, in my experience.

 

The lip balm comes in a bullet form with the signature Dior packaging i.e. the silver CD knob at the bottom. The lid is a beautiful soft translucent pink with DIOR indented on one side in the same pink colour and the words Lip Glow Color Reviver, in silver on the opposite side. The lid as well as the overall packaging feels pretty sturdy and of a high quality. You get 3.5g (0.12oz) of net weight product and you can see just how much that is from the below photo.

 

Whilst I have numerous lip balms in my collection, I don’t actually have anything similar to this product that provides both the moisturisation and the colour enhancement to my lips. Texture wise, this is most similar to my The Body Shop Born Lippy Strawberry Lip Balm which is as buttery and smooth as this Dior Addict Lip Glow, but it doesn’t provide much of a colour at all. My Nivea Fruity Shine Strawberry lip balm does leave a beautiful red-y pink colour on my lips and is pretty moisturising but it isn’t as smooth and as buttery as the Dior Addict Lip Glow.

Clearly being Dior, the Lip Glow isn’t cheap by any means. Some people will feel that spending $40+ SGD (£20+) is an awful lot of money on what in effect is a lip balm, especially when The Body Shop Born Lippy costs £3, and they'd be right or at least that's what I would have said before I tried this product because this is so much more than a lip balm, to me. 

Whilst offering the hydration of a lip balm, having a colour that customises to my own lips, beautifying and enhancing them is wonderful. In addition, whenever I look at and use this product I get that Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s experience of ultimate luxury and that magical feeling of being a princess. No lip product has ever made me feel like that before and I have owned a MAC, Lancôme and Chanel lipstick. I would quite gladly trade in all of my different lip balms for this one product alone. That’s how much I love it! Thank you to my friend for a wonderful birthday present :o)

Have you tried the Dior Addict Lip Glow? What was your experience? Which lip balm is your favourite? What is your princess-y makeup product?

Love Sheen xxx

Super Smooth Soft Skin

Good Day Everyone,

A couple of months ago I was re-organising the toiletries cupboard in our en-suite bathroom when a sudden wave of shame overtook me. I had just come across something that I had bought more than three years ago and never actually used, like not even once! All of a sudden I felt sooo guilty for wasting money on something I hadn’t used and whilst I (mentally) scolded myself I took the item out of the cupboard and placed it beside my sink so that it was there right in front of me and I would have no reason not use it.

The item I’m talking about is my round body brush from The Body Shop. I had bought this brush a few days after I'd been chatting to a guy (yes a guy) about dry skin brushing. I was feeling Bridgette Jones style motivated about how I was going to improve the condition of my skin and made the purchase on a whim. Whilst I hadn’t used the brush, it did make the trip from England over to Singapore. As one of my new year’s goals is to focus more on skin care this year, what better reason and timing could there have been for my discovery, and not to mention my shame and guilt ;o)

Since the New Year I have been using this brush three / four times a week on dry skin before showering and I am amazed at the results! The first couple of times I used this brush it felt a little harsh on my skin but now that I’ve gotten used to it, it doesn’t feel harsh or uncomfortable in any way. Plus it’s down to me as to how much pressure I apply when using the brush. I use long sweeping strokes, starting from my feet and work my way towards my heart. I’ll use circular motions over my knees and on my thighs. I tend to focus primarily on my legs, arms, hips and bum. I don’t use this brush on my chest (or on any psoriasis patches) as that skin is very delicate but I do use gentle strokes on my stomach area. 

Immediately after I’ve used this brush my skin feels sort of invigorated and alive. The way I look at it is that dry skin brushing is like exercise for my skin – it gets stimulated and leaves me feeling energised. After I’ve showered I use a nice smelling body butter or lotion to hydrate my skin. Currently I have The Body Shop cocoa body butter in use which leaves a deliciously sweet but not too sweet scent that lingers for hours. The days that I dry brush my skin I tend to use a shower gel whereas the days that I don’t dry brush my skin, I tend to use a body scrub so that my skin is being exfoliated one way or another.

In just a few weeks my skin is the smoothest and softest it’s ever been with a bit of a natural glow. Even my hubby has noticed the difference ;o) I’ve definitely noticed an improvement in the slight dimples that I had on the backs of my thighs and the skin definitely looks and feels firmer there. Dry skin brushing has great internal, as well as external, benefits;

•  It is great for exfoliating the skin and removing dead skin cells.

• It helps to firm up the skin and improve the look and feel of it.

• It massages the skin and stimulates acupressure points, improving overall well being.

• It improves lymphatic drainage eliminating toxins, and boosts blood circulation.

Given how much time I often spend looking after the skin on my hands and face, it's only right that I look after the skin on my body. It is after all the largest and most exposed organ that also detoxifies - playing a vital role in keeping me healthy.

Are you a fan of dry skin brushing? How do you look after the skin on your body?

Love Sheen xxx

Winding Down

Good Day Everyone,

One of the goals that my hubby and I had for 2014 was to try and wind down and relax more before going to bed. We both tend to go through phases where we struggle to sleep and I think this has partly been due to us being on our laptops / ipads etc right before bed which means our minds are still very active and stimulated. So as a way of getting a better night’s sleep and generally just switching off, we’ve been getting into the habit of lighting our oil burners in the evening and trying to put the technology gadgets down!

We picked up these beautiful oil burners from a market we visited in Phnom Penh (Cambodia) when we went on a last minute weekend away last year. As well as the two oil burners, we picked up three essential oils, lemongrass, jasmine and lotus. Whilst all three scents are very relaxing, we enjoy burning the lemongrass, in particular, as it reminds us of the boutique spa hotel we stayed at where we had some lovely treatments.

In addition to lighting the oil burners, we make sure that we have no bright lights on and we have some spa / Zen type music playing in the background (just type Zen music into YouTube and there’s a huge selection to choose from). This means that even if my hubby is having to deal with some late night work emails, there is some calming music playing in the background, which I hope at the very least, is slowing his mind down, even if it is at a more subconscious level. The candle light, essential oil scents and Zen music all work together to create a very relaxing and calming ambience that has been most conducive to us both getting a good night’s sleep.

I absolutely love listening to Zen music and often have it on when I’m typing up blog posts. In fact, it’s on right now as I type this post along with one of the oil burners, sending wafts of lemongrass in my direction whenever there’s a gentle breeze coming in from the balcony. I will always listen to Zen music when I’m doing my yoga type stretches as I find it helpful in getting me into that meditative mind set and helps to slow my breathing down. Given the techno-communicative crazed world we live in, sometimes we light the oil burners and play Zen music during the daytime on weekends when we want to get into a more relaxed and calmer frame of mind - it’s so soothing to simply just sit still and be every once in a while :o)

What do you do to switch off and relax? How do you wind down before bed? Do you have a particular routine or things to help you?

Love Sheen xxx

Valentine's Eyes

Good Day Everyone,

Happy Valentine's Day for Friday! You know what they say... the eyes are the window to the soul, so whether you're all loved up or all loved out (for now), you can still have beautifully made up eyes :o) As you know, eyes are my thing and whilst a bright red or pink might work beautifully on the lips, it's a little harder to pull off on the eyes. So, I'm sharing a look that I like to wear that is a little twist on the colour of luuurve!

For this look, I used this eye shadow palette from Marks & Spencer that I bought quite a while ago. I instantly fell in love with that burgundy wine colour (4th from the left). In my younger days I always used to think that having brown eyes was really boring and envied people with green or blue eyes. However, as I got older I started to appreciate the perks of having brown peepers as most (eye shadow) colours work really well with brown... it's kind of like what black is for clothes - can be paired with almost anything colour wise.

Eyelids with MAC Prep+Prime

I started of by using my MAC Prep+Prime (reviewed here) to mattify my eyelids, reduce any discolouration and minimise the appearance of my fine veins.

Eye shadow colours

Next I swept the pale pink colour (1st on the left) all over my eyelids going up to my crease, and then I used a fluffy blending brush to apply the pink (2nd from the left) into my crease and blended it with the pale pink. Next I took a little bit of the burgundy wine colour on the tip of the same fluffy brush and softly defined the outer corners of my eyes, taking the colour half way into my crease. To reduce the redness of the burgundy colour I layered a bit of the brown (3rd from the left) on top and this made the overall effect a bit more purple-y. The key with this look, as with most eye shadows, is to layer and build the colour slowly as it's easier to add more colour than to take it away if you add too much. In addition, you must blend blend blend with a fluffy brush after the edition of each colour, to get that seamless, diffused colour transition with no harsh edges. I also took some of the pale pink onto my lower lash line with an angled brush, at the inner corners of my eyes and used the brown and burgundy on the outer half of my lower lash line just to add a bit of definition.

Black kohl liner on the upper lash line and lower waterline

I then applied a very thin line of black pencil kohl liner on my upper lash line and on my lower waterline just to intensify the look a bit. I followed up with a couple of coats of black mascara and used a tiny bit of MAC Strobe Cream as a brow bone highlighter.

MAC Strobe Cream on brow bone

Finally, as this is a Valentine's look I decided to add a bit of sparkle by using my Make Up For Ever Diamond Powder on the inner halves of my eyelids. Unfortunately, I don't think my photos did the sparkle much justice. And there you have it, smokey eyes with a twist on the traditional colour of love.

Make Up For Ever Diamond Powder on inner half of lids

What (eye) makeup looks do you like to wear for Valentine's Day? Whether you're out with a loved one or having a night with the girls, I hope you have a lovely valent-eyes day :o)

Love Sheen xxx