Latest Face & Boots Bits

So, I'm entering the black hole of revision & exams until June. Worryingly, I seem to have forgotten how to revise, finals being all the way back in the dim & distant past (well, 2010).

This is what I've been wearing on my face if I feel like making more-than-no effort.

L-R: Murad Oil-Control Mattifier, Illamasqua Light Liquid Foundation in LF115, Revlon ColorStay Foundation in Ivory, L'Oreal Mattifying Powder, and NARS Douceur blush (bottom)

Primer: the Murad Oil Control Mattifier. I'm definitely a fan of this stuff - helps make-up go on smoothly, controls shine brilliantly throughout the day, and has SPF 15.

Foundation: I've been mixing Revlon ColorStay (Combo/Oily version) in Ivory with Illamasqua Light Liquid Foundation in LF115 (the palest skin-coloured shade). I used to wear the ColorStay on its own, but it is a) much fuller coverage than I need/want, and b) too dark/yellow, irritatingly. Mixing in the Illamasqua sorts both of these problems pretty nicely, giving a far better colour match and less cakey coverage. I mix them up on the back of my hand (really don't appreciate the fact the ColorStay has no pump, dammit) and apply with my fingers. I used to use a Sigma F80 flat-top kabuki brush but I find it soaks up half the product and is a right pain to clean, so fingers it is!

Top: Revlon ColorStay in Ivory; bottom: Illamasqua Light Liquid Foundation in LF115

LF115 is a good match for me on its own when blended out, if a tad neutral, but it does emphasise the pallor in a dramatic way which I don't always want, especially in the daytime. I also have this foundation in LF120, which is pinker, darker and a more easy-going shade. I can't say I'm in love with the formula on its own, as it has a tendency to look streaky/greasy, as if it's just sitting on top of the skin in an awkward way. Such a shame given the ah-mazing shade range! Must try Skin Base sometime. But am very happy to have discovered a way to use this one, really enjoying it at the moment!

Powder: the L'Oreal Transparent Mattifying Powder, sadly discontinued ages ago. I bought several of these from eBay when I realised it was no longer available in shops, so I'm now working my way through my stash. The packaging is a bit silly, as surely nobody ever uses the rubbish little brush in the lid - I just unscrew that and use a standard powder brush, obv.

Blush: NARS Douceur. Perfect everyday natural blush. I usually use a MAC 188 with this.

This, plus some mascara and lipbalm, is my standard leaving-the-house routine. I'm impressed by the Murad primer - I don't need to touch up with powder AT ALL during the day. Impressive. Although to be honest more often than not I will just use SPF and powder on top. Because it's only the library. If anything I prefer sticking on a bright lipstick - yesterday I went for MAC Girl About Town and remembered how much I looove it! - to cheer up my face, rather than spending ages on eyeliner etc.

Hope everyone's having a lovely weekend!

Till next time,

Josephine x

PS. Today's cheeky Boots haul:

Top to bottom: Soap & Glory Thick & Fast Mascara; Revlon Lip Butters in Macaroon & Sweet Tart, Soap & Glory Lid Stuff eyeshadow quad in Off the Wall Flowers

I fancied picking up these two Lip Butters having seen endless swatches on blogs. I now have six in total, five of which I like - Peach Parfait is the exception, since I find it gritty with obvious unflattering shimmer. I also had a poke around the Soap & Glory makeup, since I'd heard good things about their mascara, and ended up getting both the mascara and this random eyeshadow quad. In the end, the whole lot only cost £21 - the mascara and quad were £10 each, so I ended up with the Lip Butters for 50p each. Win. Chatting to the cashier is always worthwhile! This was something to do with a £2 off voucher which wouldn't scan properly, so he put them through as a pound! Nice one.

I definitely think my Lip Butter collection has grown big enough now. None of the other colours appeal to me as they're all too pale/shimmery, so I'll concentrate on actually wearing what I've got - revolutionary, I know. Will report back on the S&G bits at a later date when I've given them a whirl!

Today's Makeup Bag

So, I decided it was time to clear out my makeup bag and throw in a few products I haven't used in a while/put away colours I'm not wearing at the moment. And I took some photos.

I'm always shocked by how MUCH this looks all laid out like that! I split it up into eyes/face/lips, so it's a bit less intimidating!

EYE PRODUCTS

Nothing that revolutionary here, with lots of the same old favourites making an appearance.

In the MAC eyeshadow quad I have (clockwise from top left) Vex, Dazzlelight, Patina, and Satin Taupe. I want to finish up these pans of Vex and Dazzlelight as they're now a bit of a pain to apply, and Satin Taupe and Patina deserve a bit more love than they currently get in my 15-pan palette. The lone eyeshadow pan is Coquette, my eyebrow colour, and the NARS shadow top right is (surprise!) Lhasa.

I've owned this MAC Paint in Bare Canvas (in the metal tube packaging, below the quad) for a while now, having randomly ordered it after I sent back a dried-out jar of Painterly Paint Pot. It's not a product that's talked about a lot on blogs/Youtube, and I was curious to try it out - however the ointment-style packaging, while cute, is a bit of a nuisance. My current tube of Too Faced Shadow Insurance is on its last legs, so I'm trying out Bare Canvas as an alternative eye primer.

The Bourjois pot eyeshadow bottom left is in shade 90 Blanc Diaphane - I've had this for an unhygienic length of time, but it's just so useful for popping a white highlight in the inner corners (and yes, I do use the crappy sponge applicator!).

Mascaras: I'm still enjoying Benefit's They're Real!, but after my Revlon Grow Luscious dried out, I felt I needed another, more "casual" mascara which isn't so hard to remove at night. I picked up Rimmel Lash Accelerator in Extreme Black, having previously loved the regular black version, and so far I'm pretty happy with this - a much smaller brush than the Revlon version, which makes it easier to get at the corner lashes. I may be saving They're Real for evening use in future!

Liner-wise, I'm using my trusty L'Oreal Super Liner in Carbon Gloss for when I fancy winged liner, and have thrown in Topshop Kohl in Saddle (shimmery dark brown) for a change, since I never usually wear pencil liner. I also have a rather battered Mac Eye Pencil in Ebony, which is a more or less permanent fixture in my makeup bag - these days I mostly use it on the waterline of an evening. Finally, I'm experimenting with Topshop Kohl in Frost (matte white) as an inner corner highlight and on the lower waterline - white looks pretty stark, of course, but until I get round to acquiring MAC's pale flesh-toned Chromagraphic Pencil, this will do for those especially exhausted mornings!

FACE PRODUCTS

L-R, top to bottom: No. 7 Perfect Light Loose Powder in 05 Translucent; Bourjois Healthy Mix Serum in 51 Light Vanilla; Illamasqua Cream Pigment in Hollow; Jemma Kidd Dewy Glow All Over Radiance Creme in Iced Gold; NARS blush in Desire; Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Concealer in 1 Fair.

The only new product here is the Jemma Kidd creme highlighter, which I bought after hearing rave reviews from other bloggers, particularly Anna! So far I only own powder and liquid highlighters (such as MAC Lightscapade and Benefit High Beam), and I love the simplicity of creme products which you can apply with your fingers. This was pretty expensive - £17 I think - but no more so than MAC! It's a gorgeous product, which can be blended out to a subtle glowy sheen, or applied more heavily for a more intense white-gold highlight.


I chose NARS Desire as my blush of the moment - we got off on the wrong foot, since I was more taken with Sin, but I feel it's time to acquaint ourselves. After spending that much on a blush I'm damned if it's going to languish in my makeup drawers unused! Report to follow.


The other products are fairly standard, and I think I've mentioned most of them before, and/or lots of other bloggers have! I do like the Illamasqua Cream Pigment as an eye base, but at the moment I'm using it as a contour shade, with varying degrees of success.

 LIP PRODUCTS

L-R: Neutrogena lip balm SPF 20, MAC Hue, Revlon Lip Butter in Sugar Plum, and (front) Rimmel Exaggerate Lip Liner in 063 Eastend Snob

 This basic Neutrogena lip balm lives in my makeup bag all the time - I prefer the Lanolips 101 Ointment, which resides in my handbag, but that doesn't have SPF. 

[Warning: rant ahead!] Ah, MAC Hue. This is a glaze finish lipstick which I'm sure many of you have heard of/own. It's one of the most talked about lipsticks MAC make, so when I first started buying MAC products, I ordered this online after watching girls on Youtube rave about it as the most wearable nude. Thankfully I passed on Creme d'Nude and Myth, realising even in my naive state that these would be a disaster on me. However, so many beauty bloggers rated Hue in their top handful of MAC lipstick colours, or as their favourite lipstick ever, that I didn't question my need for it. I probably would have bought it even if I'd swatched it in a shop, to be honest, since it's a non-offensive-looking sheer peachy pink when swatched. On my lips, however, it's just - horrible. Why?

1. (Oh yeah, I'm listing.) It's lighter than my lips. Quite a bit lighter, in fact. Since I am very fair, the combo of pale pink skin and pale pinky lipstick is - not good. It's also a touch too orange for my taste/skintone.
2. If I were ever to want the nude lip/smokey eye look (which is so gorgeous in my head/on other people!), I'd need a lipstick which was opaque/pigmented enough to cover my natural lip colour. This is not it. I find it applies not only sheer but also uneven and streaky. Nice.
3. It doesn't last. This isn't surprising given the glaze finish, but it wears badly, gathering in lines and generally making a nuisance of itself.
4. OK I'll stop now. Sorry. As ever, this is just my personal opinion - I've certainly seen many a blogger/Youtuber look gorgeous wearing this shade! But I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone with my colouring (pale, pink-toned skin) and taste in lipstick colours (namely, my natural lip shade or darker).

So that's my beef with Hue. Like an ex-boyfriend of a similar name, it's good on paper, not so great in real life. (I couldn't resist it.) Having spent £13 odd on this lipstick, though, I'm gonna wear the damn thing. At least you have to reapply often, which gives me a chance of finishing it up!

And finally, my latest lip product acquisition, courtesy of Stacey, is the Revlon Lip Butter in Sugar Plum. This is AMAZING. I love the two other shades I picked up (Raspberry Pie in particular, a stunning deep pink, and Peach Parfait), but this is the most wearable everyday "my lips but a LOT better" colour.

I've got to say, for my purposes/tastes at least, the Revlon Lip Butters are beating Hue hands down. (They remind me of MAC's lustre finish, which I do like; in particular, Sugar Plum is comparable to MAC Plumful.) Pigmented, glossy, not at all drying - all that, and they wear surprisingly well! I get a few hours' wear out of these, and they seem to fade pretty evenly. There are loads of blog posts and Youtube videos on these Lip Butters (such as Allison's post, which features a swatch of Sugar Plum), which apparently launch in the UK in mid-March, so I'll stop rambling here - but I will definitely be picking up more shades!

Till next time,

Josephine x

PS. This is the bag all this fits into! It's a purple leather James Lakeland bag which I got for about £10 in TK Maxx. I love that shop!

(Mascara tube for scale in otherwise featureless table landscape.)

Everyday Face of the Moment

Here we have all the products I use in my standard daily makeup routine. Scary.

 That's a whole lotta makeup. It's probably more sensible if I divide it up into vague categories, since listing it all here would be loooong (I tried it. It was).

Face products

L-R, top to bottom: NARS blush in Sin, MAC Mineralize Skin Finish in Lightscapade, Alpha-H Daily Essential Moisturiser SPF 50+, Bourjois Healthy Mix Serum in the lightest shade, Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection concealer in fair, and No. 7 translucent pressed powder.

I rarely wear foundation, but if I do feel like it, I blend in a small amount of this Bourjois one down the centre of my face, where I need a bit more coverage. Usually I just stick to concealer and powder - I definitely need powder after applying sunscreen, as it does look shiny, particularly till it dries. I'm trying to wear sunscreen every day, even though it feels (and probably is) bonkers putting it on when it's grey and cloudy outside.

Then I swipe on my latest favourite blush, NARS Sin, which is a gorgeous wearable plum with a bit of gold shimmer, and a quick dusting of Lightscapade on top of my cheekbones (such as they are). I was going to photograph the brushes I use, but a) this post would be even longer and b) they're dirty, as usual. For the record: I do own the Sigma F80 flat-top kabuki, but if I'm in a rush and want to slap on a bit of this foundation I just use my fingers, as I do with the sunscreen. I use a MAC 188 for this blush, the amazing Illamasqua highlighting brush for the MSF.



Eye products

Top to bottom: L'Oreal Super Liner in carbon gloss, Benefit They're Real! Mascara, Too Faced Shadow Insurance, MAC Paint Pot in Bare Study, MAC eyeshadows in (L-R) Crystal Avalanche, Vex, Dazzlelight, Coquette, and Copperplate.

This tube of the Too Faced eyeshadow primer has lasted me for absolutely ages, and it works brilliantly to keep eyeshadow on all day without creasing/disappearing (my mother is also a convert to this stuff!). However, when I went to the Oxford St Boots to repurchase (it's hard to find the brand in all but the biggest stores), I found it had gone up by FIVE POUNDS, to £16.50. At least, I'm pretty sure I only paid £11.50 or thereabouts last time I bought it. Now uncertain whether I'd purchase again at that price, but I shouldn't be running out any time soon. I'd also like to try the classic Urban Decay Primer Potion and MAC Painterly Paint Pot - should probably steer clear of the NARS one if I'm complaining about price!

I love the effect of this Benefit mascara, which everyone has been raving about - long, voluminous lashes with curl. So what's not to like? Well, firstly the price; I used a £5 off voucher in Boots, without which I do think it's overpriced. And it's a complete pain to get off at night! Maybe I should invest in a more heavy-duty makeup remover, but I always end up with panda eyes and flakes of black everywhere!

The L'Oreal Super Liner is an old favourite for flicked black eyeliner, which I go through phases of wearing every day. I have tried the Maybelline gel liner with a MAC 210, but I find it too fiddly, and difficult to get a smooth line without expending more effort than I'm willing to make in the mornings!

My eyeshadow standbys are either Bare Study all over the lid for a brightening effect - I just whack this on with my fingers if I need to get out of the door fast - or, for more leisurely mornings, a wash of Vex/Dazzlelight with a bit of Copperplate in the crease, using a MAC 239 and 217. If I'm feeling fancy, I'll pop some Crystal Avalanche in the inner corner for a highlight.

I always run some Coquette through my brows with the Illamasqua angled brush. I only started doing this in August, but now I wouldn't be without it - adds a bit of definition and polish to the face, which has to be a good thing!

Lip products

L-R: MAC lipsticks in Cosmo, See Sheer, Syrup, and Plumful, and Neutrogena lip balm with SPF 20.

These are what I think of as my everyday lipsticks. If I'm feeling super lazy, I just stick on some lip balm and have done with it. The next step up in the grooming stakes is Syrup, which is basically a toned-down version of my lip colour, with some shine to it. Plumful and See Sheer are equally easy to wear (these are all lustre finishes, meaning you do have to reapply quite frequently, but I think the formula works well for the everyday, not too done look), but make a bit more of an impact colour-wise: Plumful, as the name suggests, is a beautiful berry/plummy colour, See Sheer a coral red.

Finally, Cosmo, which may take the title of Favourite MAC Lipstick Ever (quite an achievement given the size of my collection, which is a topic for another day). It's an amplified finish, so packs a bit more punch and lasts longer on the lips - a gorgeous deep rosy pink, similar to my lip colour but a tad darker. Since I'm so pale, this definitely draws more attention to the lips than the other shades mentioned here, but if I'm wearing understated eye makeup I like this effect. This is the one MAC lipstick I anticipate repurchasing. Love.

And there you have it. I'm now wondering if that's a ridiculous amount of makeup to wear for a normal day. Maybe I'll go in to college entirely makeup-free one day next week and see how I feel - I think I'd find blush the hardest thing to give up!

Till next time,

LL x