Tag: lip balm

07
Oct

Go-To available at Westfield!

If there’s one thing we here at Go-To skin care love to do, it’s only be available to buy online.

But then, one day, as I was walking my pet llama, Bananallama, I thought, why not release Go-To into the wild for a special little burst, and allow The People to see and try the products in Real Life?!

Why not indeed.

And so, I present to you, the dates of our highly-anticipated (by me, mostly) Go-To Westfield pop-up* stores!

A chance for those who’ve been keen to suss out the brand (and those who’ve never even heard of it) and test our much-loved cleanser, our genius exfoliating swipeys, our wildly gentle and popular face cream, our multi-purpose body oil, loved by many a make-up artist, and of course, our hero product, Lips!

We will have fun Go-To Captains manning the stand, and cute things for you to take home, and if all that fails, well, you can always just grab a donut and coffee and hit DJs.

SYDNEY

WESTFIELD BONDI JUNCTION [near Sunglass Hut]
THURSDAY OCT 9 – SUNDAY OCT 12

(I will be there Friday Oct 10 from 4-5 and Saturday Oct 11 from 2-3.30 should you want to come say hi/drill me on AHAs.)

MELBOURNE

WESTFIELD DONCASTER  [near Guess]
THURSDAY OCT 16 – SUNDAY OCT 19

(Again, I will be there Friday Oct 17 from 4-5 and Saturday Oct 18 from 2-3.30)

BRISBANE

WESTFIELD CARINDALE [near Lorna Jane]
THURSDAY OCT 23 – SUNDAY OCT 26 

(TBC on my popping by….)

I can’t dingin’ wait. See you there, shiny hair!

* My apologies to those in Perth/ACT/Adelaide/Dubbo. I would love to have done pop-ups nationwide, but this is just a wee experiment for us, and because we are so small and so busy working on new products/looking after gnarly teething five-month olds, we chose to limit our activity for now. For now. I love you no less, and apologise for being so eastern seaboard-centric. I shall stub my big toe thrice daily as penance.

 

Responses to this drivel: 4 Comments
16
Sep

The makeup you need to look good after a long-haul flight.

…. is 12 hours sleep, a facial, a blow-dry and some professional makeup. Easy!

Alternatively, there is this sassy little kit which I take with me for a long-ass flight, which is Every Flight really, because I live in Australia, land of farawayness from everything.

Travelmakeup

As a beauty editor, it’s easy to overpack on the cosmetic front, but after long enough in the game, you start to learn which products are clever and multi-purposey enough that you can leave behind the other 2289 ‘essentials’ and just pack those.

Important note: I highly recommend having some lash extensions popped on before you go. I usually just get the outer corner so it’s not too obvious when they go wongly and start falling out. Just add it to that annoying Lady Prep List of waxing, nails, tan, elbow polishing, etc etc. They’re a tops idea for holidays in my opinion because you look lovely even when you have no other makeup on, and they negate the need for mascara in hot and swimmy environments.

The Long-Ass Flight Kit

1. A BB or CC cream with moisturising and illuminating properties, like the Napoleon Auto Pilot BBB cream, $49.50 which is my new fave, and which does wonders on my dry, thirsty skin. Great coverage too – halfway between the usual BB cream sheerness and a foundation.

2. An undereye concealer that brightens and hydrates, which the Benefit Cosmetics Fake Up, $38.50, does because it has a concealer embedded in a hydrating gel stick, so you avoid those fine lines that are the first to show when your skin is tired and thirsty, and you get a wallop of concealer too. Clever!

3. Some creme blush to rapidly and authentically wake up the cheeks (and lips if required) with a flush of colour, like the very fresh and delightful Becca Cosmetics Lip and Cheek Creme in Tuberose, $24. That the compact is tiny, unbreakable and has a mirror means it ALWAYS comes travelling with me. (I love Becca to travel. Their eye palettes esp.)

4. A genuinely hydrating and protective lip balm, care of my very own Go-To Lips!, $14.50. Planes thieve so much moisture: do not leave it to a shitty, non-last, mineral-oil filled tube or stick to do the job. Because it won’t.

5. Much gum and mints (not pictured) cos no one’s cute with breath of an ox. Also, you can offer it around if the chap or lass next to you has manky breath and you look generous and kind even though really you are deeply offended by the bacteria in their mouth and two seconds from asking for another seat.

Responses to this drivel: 6 Comments
14
Jan

I’m launching my own skin care line.

I am!

I really, really am. And HOLY SHIT IT’S EXCITING. I am so thrilled to even be writing this (admittedly cryptic and annoying) post about it, such has the level of secrecy been thus far.

I’ve been working on the range since 2012, and I can say with absolute certainty that it is the finest skin care in the entire world, which might sound like an arrogant, unqualified and completely outrageous claim, but that’s only because it is an arrogant, unqualified and completely outrageous claim.

Still, it’s very, very lovely, and I am almost certain you will like it, because, well I kind of created it with you in mind.

You being all of the gorgeous, enthusiastic, curious, feedbacky fruits I’ve had the pleasure of writing for and interacting with since I became a beauty editor a decade ago. You’ve been so beautifully honest about what you like, what you don’t like, what you use, what you think you should be using, what you know you should be using, and most vitally, just how confusing you find skin care to be.

And I agree. It IS confusing. There are so many dingin’ products out there, and so many different steps, and so many avenues and options to pursue, and so many big sciencey words and terrifying potential skin issues, it’s no wonder so many of us:

– just stick to whatever we’ve always used in the hope it’s doing something/anything

– buy whatever is new and shiny and popular because the ads make it sound so rad

– copy whatever our mum/sister/friends use

– resort to rubbing peanut butter on our faces before bed.

And look, I’m the first in line to try products with dazzling claims and fancy new ingredients. That’s my job. BUT, ultimately, and I say this as someone who can literally choose to use any skin care product she desires, and has given very many of them a good whack over the years, (and will continue to) simplicity is the backbone of my skin care routine. (Also, I travel a lot and have got my basics down to a fine art.)

All I really use is:

A great cleanser.

Something with AHAs to exfoliate.

Moisturiser.

Lip balm.

A physical sunscreen.

Targeted serums.

Stuff to keep the skin on my body nice.

And so I wondered…. would it be the craziest thing in the world to make a tight edit of really very useful, incredibly simple, extremely natural but very effective skin care products that combined my years of experience testing and using a wide range of them, with the ingredients I know work, with my desire for simplicity and my firsthand understanding of what women actually want (and need, whether they know it or not) from their skin care? And – gasp – make it all a bit fun, too?

No. It would not be the craziest thing in the world. (That would be smoking on a commercial airliner while announcing loudly that you are messenger from out of space here to expertly cull the population using planes as your weapon and caramel sauce as your sustenance.)

That said, it has been a BIG BIG undertaking. I now get why not many people start their own skin care lines. It’s hard. Stressful. Challenging. And even though I have an exceptional team around me, including overwhelmingly valuable guidance from my dear friend, Megan Larsen, founder of  superb organic skin care brand (and personal favourite) Sodashi, it’s been a huge, wild learning curve, one not helped by my insane levels of fussiness and perfectionism and endless demands of my brilliant biochemist for ‘less ingredient X’ and ‘half of a whisper more of ingredient Y,’ and questions regarding making something ‘less grabby but not too slippy, you know?’

Zoe Foster Blake Skin Care Samples
Some of my many many samples…

Here’s an example: This is VERSION 16 of my lip balm. And that’s not even the final one. No surprises there, though, you guys know how fucking pedantic I am about lip balm. Always have been. Never quite found the perfect one. So, if I am making my own, guess where all of that pedantic fury is going to be funnelled?

Zoe Foster Blake Skin Care Versions 2
Version 16. The almost final product. 

To say that I am impressed with this particular product is a violent and spectacular understatement. I don’t want to talk it up too much, but actually, wait a second, yes I do. It’s excellent. It is! Am I allowed to say that? Who cares. As you can imagine, it’s stupidly exciting finally getting the products to look, feel, smell and act just as I imagined them to, and use them and love them, and just be disgustingly proud of them like a gross stage mum. 

You cannot know how excited I am for you all to try them.

Speaking of which, this post is obviously just a frustrating teaser, but the range will officially launch April 1. (Yes, on April fools day. You know me).

Well before then, though, I will of course give you all the proper details about the range like, oh I don’t know, the name maybe? And the product breakdown, what they do, the long list of nasties we left out, the cool shit we definitely didn’t leave out, what they look like, smell like, where they like to eat lunch, where they were made, and where you can buy them.

AND! Hold on to your hand creams, because in February I am doing a special pre-order campaign just for my faithful fruits. Of course I am! You helped create the range, it’s only fair you get your silky paws on it first.

Yours in giddiness and perfectly nourished lips,

Zo

 

Responses to this drivel: 174 Comments
10
Jun

The real reason your lips are so dry.

Is probably the same reason mine are: because you keep blowing kisses to your millions of teenage fans.

But bizarrely, there are other reasons for our lips to become dry.

Other reasons as to why no matter what you use, and what you do, your lips are tight, flaky, dry and essentially, showing you physically how furious at you for not tending to them properly or protecting the properly in the first place (from heat, heaters, wind, cold, snow, the sun or too much making out), and failing to buying them that pony you continue to promise them even though you know the yard isn’t big enough.


1. You have been using a lip barrier, not a lip balm.

And chances are that barrier is full of petroleum, which is a mineral oil derivative, and which I will not sanction if you are genuinely serious about healing dry lips, because IT WON’T DO SHIT. All it can hope to do is act like cling wrap over your lips, a film of thick grease. But it can not add moisture or encourage hydration. It just can’t. So sure, if your lips are in cracking shape and you are about to go out into the wind, load up. But if they are sore and cracked and painful, don’t mistake that lubricating feeling for moisturisation, cause only a dingus would do that, and I’ve seen your report card, and you’re no dingus.

2. You have used cosmetics that are drying.    

Like most lipsticks and glosses, sadly. Gosh, some are just the WORST aren’t they? Such a G-damn shame too, because the colour, texture and finish might be outstanding, but the next day your lips are ripped to shreds with creases and cracks. I wore one of my favourite red long-last lipsticks to dinner the night before my wedding because my skin was looking terrific thanks to 400 facials and red lips was all I wanted/needed, and it was a very very very bad idea because the day of my wedding my lips were a mess. Idiot.

But it’s not just lip products. Often you can involantarily swipe some BB cream or foundation or even moisturiser (especailly those with AHAs) over your lips and that can cause havoc. Gone are the days when people like me with blogs like this would tell you to press concealer all over your lips before applying lipstick, because all that does is dry the HECK out of your lips. (You’d use a lip primer or just a nude lip pencil instead.)

3. You are dehydrated.

Whenever I’m having my makeup done and have dry lips (“most of the time”) two times out of three the makeup artist will scold me for not drinking enough water. The lips are one of the first places on the body to show a lack of water in the system, so pay heed. Also, think about what you’ve been doing when next you have dry lips, it’s viable you’ve been depriving your body of water, whether from too many blankets at night, or travel, or partying. It will take a day or so to get them back on track, and get those water levels up in the body, so start sipping, man.

4. The environment is walloping you.

Heaters in winter, air con in summer, snow, wind, sun, salt… it’s almost like the earth has shares in Burt’s Bees.The thing is to be prepared: prevent rather than treat. So before you even board that plane, or head of for a day at the beach, or settle down in front of that roaring fire (you are a Girl Guide’s leader, right?), think lips. Protect and nourish them with a lovely moisturising lip balm (or even barrier at this stage if you are so inclined.) And of course, use SPF for all day time/sun activities. Otherwise you get burnt lips, aged lips and maybe – if you’re real lucky – a cold sore.

5. You keep licking them.

Have some self-restraint for God’s sake. It’s the lip equivelant of giving a drunk girl more tequila because she’s thirsty. Don’t do it.

When you find yourself with very irritated, very dry lips, I recommend:

Sipping a litre or two of water over the next couple of hours. Not gulping as you’ll just wizzwozz it all out.

– Taking a warm, damp face cloth and gently, so gently, exfoliating your lips by massaging the cloth over them in small circles. Some will tell you to use a toothbrush for this. Ignore them. They are morons.

– Smearing some (manuka if possible) honey to the lips and letting it sit for 10 minutes.

– Press it into the lips so it’s all gone, then apply a nourishing lip balm of your choice.

Comvita_UMF_5__Manuka_Honey_1367393290_main

I would love to recommend a bunch of great lip balms at this point, (I won’t be recommending a certain red tube which is petroleum based and although great for cuticles, bites and rashes, is not healthy for or useful for the lips) but to be very honest, I’m pretty disenchanted with the whole category. None seem to work for me, and I have tried, I would think, more than the average woman due to my job/travels/the first question I ask any skin or makeup expert what they use and then buying it.

Currently I am using Lanolips 101 ointment which I like for its thickness, and I also have a Lavera stick in my bag for when I inevitably leave the Lanolips in a pocket, or on the floor of the car. And I like the Mecca Lip De-Luscious SPF 25 too, it’s creamy and a bit shiny and glossy, although generally I don’t wear ones with SPF at night.

Lanolips 101 Ointment

MECCALIP

What do you use?

Why?

Will it fix me? 

Responses to this drivel: 104 Comments