A breather - new packaging and shades for Boots 17

I've started a hectic new job, and though there has been little time to update, I have been making a little corner of me-time here and there by scouting for beauty treasures when I go to buy my lunch.

Imagine my delight at seeing that national treasure of a beauty stalwart Boots 17 reincarnated with new packaging and shades.

A primary rainbow punch has been added to the Fast Finish and Lasting Fix nail polish ranges. Grey, azure, royal blue, sunshine yellow, bright white - think Barry M or Rimmel's latest offerings.

There are also some additions to the lip and eye colour ranges, with new shade names like Socialite and Chilli Fire.

Rounded sans-serif font has taken a back seat in favour of a more glam, Too-Faced style typesetting on the packaging. There's also a bold, modern look to the small-print on the bottom of lipstick tubes and the back of bottles.

The new look has taken 17 a step further from its workaday teenage roots and into the more edgy/glamorous frame set by some of the more funky premium beauty brands. I sense the benign influence of Too Faced, Urban Decay and Hard Candy at work here.

My little brain registered these details and impressions during a ten-minute snatched tryst with the beauty aisles in Boots yesterday. You can find out more for yourself at your local branch. Unfortunately the new styling hasn't made an appearance online yet, but if Piccadilly Circus is anything to go by, the products are right there on the shelves now.

What's more, you can try one of the new nail polish shades gratis when you buy any other product.

Go go, look look, and enjoy!

A beautiful Seoul

Last summer I visited South Korea. Aside from the many amazing sights and sounds in Seoul, Busan, Andong and on the road between, one of the things I found most intriguing was the beauty culture.

In the centre of Seoul is a shopping district called Myeongdong - something akin to Japan's Harajuku or London's Covent Garden or Brick Lane - a handful of downtown blocks brimming with youth, fashion, crowds, energy and style. It's not the only place of note for beauty locations, but it has everything that characterises the Korean beauty scene, and has it in spades. It's here I went to explore inside the storefronts that had been tempting me ever since I stepped out of the airport.

There are several large beauty chains in Korea, and they are clearly big business, with stores in all major malls and high streets. They're frequented by women of all ages, clustering like happy bees around the amazing variety of shades and finishes available for eyes, lips, face and nails. A good example is Etude House. It's a beauty brand that unreservedly embraces the Asian trend of CUTE.

Packaging that's baby pink and adorned with sparkle and curlicued styling, store fittings to match. Their locations are more like scaled-up Barbie houses than shops, each a garish profusion of pink, sugary cuteness. And most remarkably of all to my English eyes, used to comparatively staid and traditional Boots and Superdrug, are the staff, dressed in pink frills with candy-striped stockings, cheeks lurid with blusher. They stand at the door holding out baskets lined with sample sachets and freebies to tempt you in. You have to make a minimum spend to keep the treats, of course.

There's also Skin Food, something like Lush or the Body Shop but with the usual Korean rainbow of nail polish and eyeshadow shades. On buying a few things to bring home, I received an amazing fistful of samples from the sales assistant who maybe took pity on my lack of Korean language skills. My windfall included a baffling array of "natural" unguents - broccoli sun cream with SPF 42? Peach Saké Pore Serum? Mmm.

Another big player is The Face Shop, which has a slightly more clinical, grown-up aura to it but still puts on an impressive show of cosmetics, face and body care, nail polish, masks and treatments. Going by the folks I visited, there seem to be few women in Korea without a few Face Shop products on their bathroom or bedroom counters.

The best thing about Korean beauty shopping, apart from the amazing variety of new brands, colours and trends, was the price. It's no wonder Korean women are so gorgeously groomed, with big chains providing quality cosmetics at pocket-money prices. A high-quality, well pigmented eyeshadow costs just a few thousand won (1000W= about 50p), with nail polish from as little as 2000W.

It's part of a bigger theme I sensed during my visit - a strong interest in looking good and making a statement through that. Women can often be seen unselfconsciously checking their appearance in the full-length mirrors near the ticket barriers in the underground. Men too, seem to be part of this climate of aesthetics, and are happy to join their female contemporaries in the Sephora-like beauty emporiums found throughout the capital. My Korean friend and host, a 24 year old guy, was able to direct me to the makeup shops and even browse with me, advising on shades and trying the testers on his hand.

I left Korea with a lot of new ideas, memories, and additions to my makeup bag. There's infinitely more to the place than makeup, but if you do visit, be sure to give at least an afternoon over to some serious cosmetic browsing.

Sights (that should be) unseen

Spotted in Tottenham Court Road Boots - a girl using the tester mascara at the Too Faced fixture to make up her eyes.

Surely everyone knows by now that you should NEVER share mascara, let alone use one that is avilable to all and sundry?

Cor! Branded train cases by Urban Decay.

Browsing the US Urban Decay website's "New" section, I noticed something exciting - a metal-framed traincase with UD logo and two choices of skull patterning. I can't see any pictures of the interior, but presumably there are shelves and trays like in your regular train case (or if you're me, in your makeshift LIDL fishing tackle box). I like the grey one best.

Here they are.

Presumably these will also come to the UK. I will post again if I hear more.

Review - MAC Studio Sculpt

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This was the week I finally bit the bullet and spent my Christmas MAC voucher. I elected to visit the Covent Garden branch (NB - MAC's gift vouchers are only redeemable in free-standing stores, not in department store concessions or online). One of the items in my sights was the new Studio Sculpt foundation from the Well Defined collection.

The general noises made online are that Studio Sculpt is a love it or hate it product. Some find it cakey, heavy and comedogenic. Others love the gel-based formula and medium buildable coverage. I was attracted by the addition of SPF 15, the easy application, and the packaging - a squeezable toothpaste-type tube with a wide screw cap and a precise nozzle. (At £22 a go, it's nice to know you won't be wasting any product.)

Isn't there something about the light in MAC stores? Something at once halogen-bright and candlelight deep. Maybe it's tungsten bulbs or maybe just the aura of cosmetic prestige. I don't know. But it makes everything look just a little more intense and perfect than it actually appears on the grey British street outside.

For this reason I enlisted the help of one of the makeup artists in choosing my shade of Studio Sculpt. There's a great range to choose from - the usual gamut from porcelain to espresso, with warm, cool and neutral casts catered for. My shade was NC15, and it was applied deftly by my makeup artist with a foundation brush. Out on the street, a hand mirror confirmed that the shade was spot on and the coverage thorough but happily natural-looking.

At home, I replicated the matte, smooth effect easily enough with fingertips, and was pleased to find that it lasted all day and wasn't too prone to transferring onto collar, gloves and other nearby fabric items. As a not-at-all-morning person I'm not a great wearer of foundation, preferring to just conceal and run out of the door. However with coverage good enough to stand alone without powder or concealer, I could definitely see this becoming a habit.

Verdict - a versatile foundation with plenty of coverage and easy wear

See and buy at www.maccosmetics.co.uk

High Street beats MAC - liquidlast-style eyeliners.

[caption id="attachment_6" align="alignnone" width="421" caption="It's OK, it comes off with oil-based cleanser!"][/caption]

Anyone who's ever tried MAC's Liquidlast eyeliners will know exactly what I mean when I say that you CAN have such a thing as too much staying power.

The range was released in the summer of 2006, with the flagship shade Aqualine, a stunning gold-pearled bright teal, featuring prominently on advertising and in magazine pages.

Liquidlasts are eyeliner with a psychotic degree of staying power. They cling to your lids (and oh yes - lashes, fingertips, and anywhere else you accidentally get them) with the tenacity of a desperate ex-girlfriend. They are bright, beautiful, steadfastly reliable, and on the other side of the coin, pretty much impossible to remove without surgery.

The nub of the matter appears to be in the formula. The Fluidlines are not water soluble like regular liquid liners, nor oily or waxy like pencil liners. They aren't vulnerable to tears or body heat. Instead, the pigments are suspended in some kind of acrylic polymer, in the same vein as Blinc mascara with its little non-smudge tubes. Unlike Blinc, however, they're not removable with warm water and a little pressure. Instead, you need a lot of oil or oil-based remover, cotton wool and patience.

So MAC went in on the polymer-liner attack with all guns blazing, to mixed acclaim. Since then, however, the high street brands appear to have been getting their chemists on the case, and both good old Boots No. 7 and Superdrug-franchised Danish colour-fiends GOSH have developed Liquidlast-a-like products at very modest prices.

Best of all, they both seem to have toned the formula down for ease of use. Having tried both brands' offerings, I can confirm that both GOSH Extreme Artliner(not yet online) and No. 7 Stay Perfect Eyeliner are smoother and less goopy to use than Liquidlast, dry out less quickly in the tube, and best of all, offer a window of opportunity for tidying up application errors with a cotton bud before they set into the rock-hard steadfastness you bought them for. You can take them off with any oil-based remover, and they take a lot less work than Liquidlasts to eradicate when you've finished your Amy Winehouse impression.

Colour-wise, No.7 are offering a range of five shades in metallic colours from white-gold to royal blue (no black however - they missed a trick there). GOSH have a broader range with a spectrum of brights, basic black, browns and bronze shades. Both have produced a dupe of blazing teal Aqualine, and pretty convincingly too.

GOSH currently have a 3 for 2 offer across the range at Superdrug. And Boots are currently offering one of their lovely free gifts when you spend £18 on No. 7.

So if you've ever fancied having eyeliner that stays on without smudging, creasing, running, or generally misbehaving, or if you've tried Liquidlast and found it a little too zealous, give these babies a go.

Welcome

Slap Happy is a blog about cosmetics in the UK. Whether you make high end purchases or scout for bargains on the high street, check here for news, reviews and brand information about the UK makeup market.