Flashback Beauty Friday 20: Paul & Joe Carousel Lipstick

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Week 20 already, I can't believe it! Flashback Beauty Friday is a chance to reminisce about older discontinued or limited edition beauty items. I'm a lover of pretty packaging and have been collecting, as well as using makeup, for over 3 decades now, so I have quite the stash to share! Last week was the floral Clarins eyeshadow palette and today I have a lipstick and case from Paul & Joe.

Paul & Joe really, really appeal to me with their packaging. Originally a French fashion brand, they expanded into beauty in 2002 and you'll often find prints and themes from the clothing line replicated in limited edition makeup pieces and vice versa. Their mainline cosmetics have a glamorous, retro, Parisian vibe, but the limited edition launches especially, lean more Asian, in particular Japanese inspired. British and American cosmetics just don't look like this unfortunately or maybe fortunately for my bank balance! Designer and founder Sophie Mechaly's cats feature heavily, there's lots of cuteness, a bit of kitsch, vintage and just beautiful patterns and themes.

This lipstick launched with the Carousel Collection in Spring 2013. It (as they usually do) came in 3 shades, this is 078 which may have had a shade name too, but P&J often don't write both on their packaging, so you inevitably forget it over the years. When this launched, I was just awestruck. It's absolutely stunning, but then I do have a thing for carousel horses.

The tip of the lipstick features "P J" initials and then the actual stick has an embossed carousel horse on the pole, around the lipstick. I bought the colour I'd be most likely to wear (a brown-nude), but as you can see I've never plucked up the courage to actually swatch it. It's just so charming, I can't bring myself to ruin it.

Even the outer part of the lipstick is lovely with a floral lace design printed alongside the brand name.

At this time, the lipsticks and cases were sold separately. When I pulled this out of my stash (the lipstick was already housed in the case), I thought I'd made a bit of a strange choice putting these two together, but actually when I checked back, this case did indeed launch alongside the lipstick and this exact pairing featured in the promotional images. The case is 006, red with blue and yellow elephants in pairs. Usually each season the packaging doesn't perfectly match, for example the others in this collection were a purple diamond pattern and green cat print.

The designs were carried over in the eyeshadow pots in this range, which I'm still annoyed I never got. Again 3 different shades, housed in the three prints. The eyeshadows featured the carousel horse design and lace theme and several colours were incorporated into each image. There's absolutely no way I would ever have used it, I just know I'd have wanted to keep it pristine as a collectors piece.

I found an empty horse print lipstick case recently, which I may switch for this elephant one as I think it would better compliment the carousel horse design.  Not that I need my lipsticks and cases to perfectly match, I just like the two of them together more than the elephants.  Paul & Joe are actually one of the worst brands for me struggling to use or swatch their stuff.  It's always so pretty, I just can't!