CLINIQUE : A GORGEOUS LIPSTICK, A FABULOUS SUNSCREEN

April 25, 2008

It ‘s Clinique Bonus time at Sears Canada. I normally find the Bonus very hit-and-miss. Besides their High Impact mascara, there are very few Clinique products that I love and am willing to pay for. The lipsticks come in some good colors but have less staying power than Vaseline, whichever type I buy. The April 2008 bonus has some good things in it and it’s yours for a CDN$26.50 purchase.

The Bonus contains:

a tube of Liquid Facial Soap Mild
a jar (bad) of Zero Gravity Repairwear Lift Firming Cream
a Colour Surge Eye Shadow Duo in Like Mink – very decent vanilla and a warm medium brown +sparkles ; the color above is not Like Mink; follow the link to see the product and the very good color preview interface at the bottom
a small tube of High Impact Mascara – my favorite
a tube of Different Lipstick in Tenderheart, a sheer caramel-brown color.
a tube of Long Last Lipstick inBeauty – a little deeper and pinker than the color of lips
a cosmetics bag – why not?

It was the most attractive bonus I’d seen in awhile. Everytime I looked, there was the yellow moisturizer and the tube of Raspberry Glace lipstick. They must have finally got through their semi-truckload supplies of the stuff.

A Clinique lipstick to love

But what to buy? Well, last summer I bought a tube of Colour Surge Butter Shine lipstick… and it was great! I had turned a corner with Clinique lipstick. It was creamy, comfortable, not too opaque or pigmented (as you may have read here, that I prefer neutral makeup). The color, Delovely, was a little too pink for me so I gave it to a good friend who wears it better than I. I decided to try again for something more fair since my life is really just an ongoing search for the perfect neutral lipstick. I bought Adore U.

I have a 12 old daughter with a remarkable sense of fashion, color, and the suitability of clothing for the people who wear them. She doubles as my Image Consultant. Her comment was “I like it. Those are the colors you should wear that you never wear”. Well, OK then.

It’s a light pink-peach color with a little gleam to it. There are very few women who couldn’t wear this well. It won’t last more than an hour but you can reapply it without a mirror and it feels great on, very much like a balm.

New favorite sunscreen

To get me over the $26, I needed a second product. I had heard that Clinique makes some oustanding sunscreens. Though I love my standby Estee Lauder product, which I wrote about here, they don’t give it away. It costs US$38. I was open to change.

After studying my trusty copy of Don’t Go To The Cosmetics Counter Without Me, I decided on Super City Block Oil-Free Daily Face Protector SPF 40.

$Don\'t Go To The Cosmetics Counter Without Me, 7th ed, by Paula Begoun and Bryan Barron$

I now have a new sunscreen. At CDN $21, it is a pleasure to apply, oil-free, quite safe around eyes, and unscented (actually, there is a scent; it reminds of a spice of some sort, maybe coriander or cardamom).

It feels very creamy as it’s applied. It is a little too heavy for me to wear under makeup at work, so I’ll stay with the Estee Lauder then. Women with drier skin will really love it.

(Update Oct. 08: as the weather got colder and the air drier, this product became my under-makeup sunscreen/moisturizer in the SPF 25 version. I have no complaints. It is terrific. Clinique changed the name to City Block Sheer. The feel and look of it is the same. The Clinique employee assures me that the formulation is the same. I hope she’s right. Wouldn’t it be awful to work for a company that lies to you, or tells you to lie to customers? Gosh.)