Base routine/ favourite base products

Oh hi! Welcome to my morning face, and my amazing mug which I got literally ten years ago. Welcome.

It's been a while, sorry about that, life got in the way.

Anyway, hopefully as  you can see from the title, this post is all about base (buttery biscuit base)..if you don't know what that means I don't think we can be friends. Look it up.

So for this, I used all (very almost) highstreet, or drugstore products to achieve a natural looking base which just needed topping up with whatever eye and lip look I fancied.
I won't say this is an everyday look - I tend not to have time to do a few of these steps- but this probably only took 15-20 minutes tops.

For foundation, my favourite at the moment is Rimmel Match Perfection in a mix of Porcelain and Ivory to get my colour. I love this stuff, even though I have pretty oily skin, and I think it might be better suited to normal to dry skin as it has a really natural/dewy finish. I do get oily on my T Zone during the day, but I prefer that to the foundation breaking down into patches which looks awful with foundations like the L'Oreal True Match. Anyway, I digress.

For concealer, a mix of my Bobbi Brown Corrector, Collection Lasting Perfection Concealer and the L'Oreal True Match clicky highlight pen thing. Love all these, great cocktail of concealers. Speaking of the Collection concealer, I used a little of Shade 4 to warm up my face just around the edges and on my cheeks. This isn't a cream contour, it's a pretty warm shade, but it works really nicely as a cream bronzer.

For powder (which isn't in the photo, sorry, it was 7am) I use my Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder in Difused Light, as well as my Fit Me Powder to set oilier areas.

I like to cancel out discolouration on my eyelids every day, it just makes your eyes look so much more awake. I was using the Maybelline Colour Tattoo in Creme de Rose, but I have this sample of Benefit's Stay Don't Stray so I've been using that for a while now - it's lasting forever!

For my brows, I am looving my Anastasia Dip Brow in Soft Brown at the moment, I think it's dried out a little and I'm finding it a lot easier to not over- load. I top this off with the L'Oreal Brow Plumper. 

Somehow, for the rest of my face, I accidentally used three Revolution Products. Firstly, this huge Bronze/Shimmer/Highlight pan and then the blush in Love. Really like both of these, especially the bronzer which I always go back to. For highlight, which I basically put all over my face, I used the Revolution Radiant Lights palette which is amazing if you're looking for a budget highlight, really long lasting, and a great selection of three shades for all skin tones. Ah-maze.

So yeah! Think that's it. As I said, not something I have time for every morning, but definitely nice when I have a little more time in the mornings and I want a little extra bronze 'n' glow.

Thanks for reading!

Side note, I have child hair. Yep. 

Sunday Chat | Palette Lust List

Hey! I hope you've had a really good weekend.
What have I been up to? Well, it feels like my life only consists of tidying, unpacking and sorting these days, even though I moved in over two weeks ago now. I managed to get some blog photos done yesterday morning so I will have some content up over the next week, hooray! I hope you're excited; I'm excited.

Anyway, as usual with my Sunday posts, this is just going to be a chatty no-photo no-fuss ramble, basically. This time, it's about the palettes I'm lusting after right now.

1. Hourglass Holiday 2015 palette

Have you seen this? Holy shit, that's my Christmas list sorted. Everything Hourglass makes is so beautiful. I don't actually own anything of theirs, but it's hard not to trust the millions of reviews which say their products are absolutely top notch. So this palette looks like it has highlights, setting powders, blusher and bronzer. So basically everything. I read a blog post which said this palette would be $79... so £50? That seems a steal considering each powder is around £35. And you get six...? Surely not. If this is a US exclusive, I will cry.

2. Zoeva Cocoa Blends Palette 

This was buzzing around the blogosphere a few months back, and I haven't got over it quite yet. It  really does look amazing, I love the warm browns and the touch of pinky mauve- ness for the autumn season. Plus, it is somehow only £15- a really good deal if the product is as good as everyone is saying!

3, Charlotte Tilbury, The Vintage Vamp Quad

You hear a lot about CT's Dolce Vita, but personally, Vintage Vamp appeals to me a bit more. It's probably those beautiful deep maroons which look absolutely dreamy. I've been hunting for a good quad recently, as I find my collection is significantly lacking in anything between a single and a 16-pan whopper, and I have pondered on these many a time. The only snag is that they cost as much as a Naked Palette, and house significantly less shades. Still, it does look like total quad- perfection...

4. Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette

Chocolate and make-up, my two favourite things, brought together in this beautiful array of eyeshadow goodness. Could it get any better? Basically, no, it can't. The colour selection is this palette is right up my alley, with some buttery mid-tone crease shades, bronzey browns, and hints of purple and red. Amazing. Is it my birthday yet?

So yeah, I hope you enjoyed this, and can sympathise a little with my palette obsession.
Thanks for reading!
Lou x

Splurge.

Oh god, my purse hurts just looking at these photos. I went shopping with a friend and ended up buying this. To be honest, I have only myself to blame, I was in a splurge-y mood, and something had to happen. Somehow, I justified myself out of buying an Hourglass Powder, but then bought this which was only £5 cheaper. Logical. 

If you're a beauty lover, you'll know that this is a Becca Shimmering Skin Perfecter in liquid form. I went for Moonstone, but for a minute almost convinced myself that I wanted Pearl, which is more of a white-based highlight, whereas this is slightly more champagne/ golden.

The price tag makes me wince. No wait, not wince, cry. Hysterically.
But, a girl's gotta shop, and sometimes nothing is more satisfying than a huge, spontaneous splurge on something you totally don't need. (Do you see me justifying this to myself?).
But, this is a cult classic, and something which I don't have in my collection at the moment, unless you count the Revlon Skin Lights (which I don't because it's more bronze-y so it can't highlight my face).

I haven't been able to play with it a huge amount yet, but I've been using it as a regular highlight, and I just love it. It's such a natural wet-looking sheen which just looks beautiful, and so far I'm really impressed. I'm looking forward to playing around with it a little more, maybe mixing it into a foundation to see how that works!

Happy splurging!


Lou x

Make Up Revolution Ultra Sculpt and Contour Kit

I've been on the look out for a budget Bronze/Blush//Highlight kit for a while now, mainly for the convenience. So- I was really excited to see this offering from Make Up Revolution for around £3.50. I got mine in the shade Ultra Fair, and I've worn it a couple of times to check the wear time, which is surprisingly good.

(I did film a little video of my applying it but it was too large to upload to my blog, so I'll make a YouTube video and upload it soon)

 I would say the best of the threesome is the bronzer/contour. It's very pigmented but blends out like an absolute dream. The blusher is my least favourite because, when teamed with the highlight, the two together is a lot of shimmer. But hey, its summer so who cares? The highlight is beautiful; not chunky or glittery like a lot of cheaper highlights, but really shimmery and pretty, lav it.
I think this is a really good mini- palette, and definitely one to pick up if you're heading away on holiday and you want a quick fix.

Thanks for reading!
Lou x

Quick Review | A Bargain Blush

This is the Collection Gorgeous Glow Blush Block, and it's such an amazing bargain I needed to do a speedy review.

The striped 'brick' design is reminiscent of the Bobbi Brown Shimmer Bricks, but obviously at a smidgen of the price.
I use this by swirling my brush into all of the colours and applying it as one shade to my cheeks. It is a peachy pink sheer-ish soft powder with a golden sheen, which makes it amazing for summer, and beautiful on tanned skin.

You can see it here swatched and blended in on the left, to show that it can really be sheered out and worn even on the palest skin. Because of the shine in the powder, it would make a beautiful peachy highlight on darker skin tones, as well as a great blush on fairer skin.
The staying power is actually pretty good. It has at least a 6-8 hour wear, and I found that I didn't need to re-apply it during the day when I wore this to work.
Fabulous, and a bargain at £2.99. Check it out!

Thanks for reading!
Lou x

5 minute make- up ~ Spring Pinks

Happy Easter!

So today I did this quick, fresh-looking Spring make- up. 

I do apologise for the edited photo, when I looked in the mirror, my face looked fine, but when I took a photo, I just looked horrible, so. Sorry.

I only used things from my previous post, so I took the Rimmel BB cream allover, concealer in the obvious places, a healthy dab of the Revolution Blush in Love on my cheeks, and the Technic highlighter dabbed on my cheekbones and on my brow bone.

The eyes were super simple. 

A swipe of the Bourjois 24 Hour cream eyeshadow allover the lid (in Petale), and a little browny eyeshadow swished into the crease- i used the second from the left shade in my Collection Eyes Uncovered Nude Bronze palette.

I've been loving the sans- eyeliner look recently, I think it looks really fresh, so I just went straight in with mascara.

For the lips, just a quick splash of the Revlon Lip Butter in Pink Truffle for a nice natural flushed pink.

Voila!

Hope you've had an amazing day,

Thanks for reading

Lou x

Revolution Ultra Blush Palette Sugar And Spice ~ Mini Review and Swatches

This is the Make Up Revolution Blush Palette in Sugar and Spice which is a set of 8 'blushes'.

It is a strange set of powders to be honest, with two intensely glittery, unwearable highlighters at the far end, and then 6 completely matte, insanely pigmented powders in the rest of the palette.

1. Is a colour I stayed completely clear of until very recently. It's like a deep browny peach which I thought would be horrible on pale skin, but actually looks really natural, and can be used as a contour/bronze/blush hybrid because its matte

2. Is a really dark bright pink, I will never ever use this colour to be honest. It's so pigmented and dark that it just won't look right on my skin, so I don't think I'll ever use this colour, but  I think would look really nice on darker skin.

3. is a lighter, less brown version of 1, as you can see, so it's a really good all-in-one shade.

4 & 5 are ridiculously similar, I tend to use 5 rather than 4, I just think it's a shade lighter, but is still quite a full-on darkish pink

6 is my favourite shade out of this whole palette. It's a proper bright coral with a huge pigment punch, love it

7 & 8 are highlighters. Now...I don't understand how you would use these, except maybe as eyeshadow. 8 especially is just...unwearable. It's incredibly, incredibly glittery, and a super bright pink. Totally unwearable and basically a little bit crazy. 7 is like the same thing but a silvery lilac, so could work as a really super intense highlight, but I still think is not very wearable.

All in all, I don't think this palette is really worth getting, unless you love a range of super matte, SUPER pigmented blushes and crazy highlights. They are so pigmented that they are quite hard to blend, so you have to apply with a really light hand. However, I love having a range of blushes in a palette, and I'm eyeing up the All-About-Cream blush palette from Revolution which I think would be more usable. 

Thanks for reading :)

Lou x