Tom Ford Black Orchid lipstick

This was not a planned purchase. It was one of those lipstick indulgences that you make when shopping with a friend, and you do so because they are buying it and you are a sheep.



The friend in question was Alyson. I had never met Alyson before - only read her fabulous makeup/fashion blog (Link!) - but we had a planned meet up outside the Sephora in Downtown Seattle and that was that. As is so often the case when meeting up with blog friends, it all just falls into place. It's quite special if you think about it - you converse with someone, only digitally, and when you meet them face-to-face you firm up a friendship and chat non-stop for hours!

Here's Alyson1 :)




We made a whirlwind trip round Sephora (I looked for White Russian (fail!) and I bought Tarte Exposed which is nowhere near as wonderful as NARS Douceur - I can review separately if you like) and then before Gin O'Clock, ended up in Nordstrom. Here we stumbled upon the Tom Ford counter and the strongest, most scary lipstick that man sells - Black Orchid.

Yes, I know, it's a pretty rich black/berry colour, and absolutely not up my street. But I have to confess that I have always had a thing for this sort of shade. I can pinpoint a photo in Kevin Aucoin's first book that had me obsessed - clear, tanned, luminous skin, a light, gleaming eye and a black/berry lip. Gorgeous.

Here's the thing with this though. As much as I LOVE that look, and as much as I am more confident with colour on my lips, this feels like a step too far when it's applied full on. I feel like I should be working at End of Century (Gallery Girls reference to anyone appreciative of that series :). It's dark, rich, intense and draws attention in a way that no other lipstick does. Seriously, brick red is a piece of cake compared to this.

So here it is pretty full-on  - I will admit I sometimes sport this around the flat :)



So I don't have the guts to wear this out but don't worry,  it is not destined to sit in a drawer unloved.

That berry/purple tone is PERFECT dabbed onto the lips as a stain and that's exactly what I have been doing the majority of the time. I often pair it with an insipid pink lip product I am trying to use up - AKA Chanel Plaisir lipgloss. Dabbed on it creates the perfect balance of wearable-deep-mauve-lip and it's a look that lasts for hours. Another way of getting this look is to suck on a bottle of red wine.

Annoyingly I don't really have a proper picture of that - the lip strain that is. You can kind of see it in the picture of me below - here I had been wearing it for 3 hours as a stain and you can still make out a mauve tone. It seriously lasts that long...



I know that Chanel and MAC are released/have released colours very similar to this and it makes perfect sense as we welcome in the cooler months. This is the perfect colour to wear in Winter weather. It does look frightening in the tube but I have used it so much as a stain that the TF embossing that marks a fresh lipstick has completely faded away - and this is coming from me, Mrs Muted Mouth. So I would say buy one of these types of colours, experiment with the intensity for fun and wear it as a stain obsessively.

Oh and in terms of my Tom Ford lipstick cravings, it has to be Violet Fatale next. This Tom Ford lipstick thing is becoming a problem.... :)

And while we are at it....

I was going to review this separately. I knew that in a way it was pointless because it's not a new product but I wanted to let you know how much I loved it. It was so beautifully pigmented. It gave the ideal glow. The individual bars of colour actually imparted different tones that the likes of the far more expensive Bobbi Brown versions did not...

But I killed it...

Apparently there was an echo of "Nooooooooo" around the flat when Sleek's Glo in Bronze Baby met my hard tiled floor.

The good news is that it costs about £7 and is something I can pick up in the UK when I pop back at the end of September. The bad news is that I have live without it until then.

Well in any case, this is very good so if you have never tried it, I would whole-heartedly suggest you look into it! :)

And that's about all I have to say this evening! :) Chat soon!