As soon as the weather starts to feel slightly milder, blue skies are a more regular occurrence and the sunshine starts to creep through the clouds, I can't wait to change my makeup. In Winter, I tend to go for more matte finishes, so in Spring I like to amp up the glow factor and go for more dew. I don't want anything heavy, but I want to look polished and still need a little more makeup than I do when summer has fully flourished.
Whilst I'd love to glam up to the max every single day and look like an Instagram queen, that's not realistic. But, even on lazy days, rushed mornings and weekends when I don't want to spend hours on my makeup, I still want to look put together and polished. I never quite feel myself without wearing some sort of shadow, whether it's super subtle and simply evens out the skin-tone, or a bolder shade that packs a punch. Either way, I always have a few individual eyeshadows on stand-by that I can use alone for a quick, yet effective, finish.
It's been a long time since my last Used Up #7 post and the drawer that stores my empties was starting to overflow, so I thought it was about time I put together a post. Actually, this is only about a third of the stash of finished products I've accumulated, but I didn't want this post to get out of control!
Clarins' Beauty Flash Balm is an iconic cult products that has has been around for years and is forever featured in magazines. It's won multiple awards and is a best-seller for the brand, thanks to every beauty editor singing its praises. Despite this, on the blogging and vlogging scene, it seems to be overlooked and that's such a shame. From the plain packaging, it may not seem as exciting as a new Hourglass palette or as attention-grabbing as a garish Too Faced collection, but it's what's inside that counts. And this little tube has the capability to perform skin miracles! Seeing as I've been obsessed with it over the past year especially (it even made it into my 2016 Makeup Favourites), I thought I'd throw it in to the spotlight for this post.
In my eyes, the goddess that is Charlotte Tilbury can do no wrong. Her entire makeup range is not only aesthetically perfect and decadently packaged, but the quality of her products is on another level. By far, my most-loved product of hers, is the Charlotte Tilbury Dolce Vita Eyeshadow Palette. All year round, come rain or shine, this is the quad I reach for most often.
Foundation is a product I'm willing to loosen the purse strings for and Chanel's refined formulations are usually worth every penny. Vitalumiere Aqua is one of my holy-grail bases and Les Beige is a summer staple in my makeup bag. When Pro Lumiere was sadly discontinued out of the blue many years back, I was gutted. At the time, Chanel's Perfection Lumiere Long-Wear Flawless Fluid Foundation was released to replace my former favourite and, like always, Chanel's alluring charms had me hot-footing it to my nearest counter. Suprisingly, it wasn't love at first use and my bottle soon got pushed to the back of my beauty drawers. But recently, I gave it another go and my thoughts on it were definitely unexpected!
Neutral eyeshadow palettes are my weakness when it comes to makeup. I have so many piled up in my beauty drawers, but that never stops me adding more to my collection. Granted - I do love to splurge on luxury brands, but it's always much more exciting to come across more affordable products that impress and rival premium formulas. Just like the Collection Eyes Uncovered Palettes. At just £3.99 each, these palettes are an absolute bargain and give some premium palettes a run for their money!
Fusing hi-tech formulations, skincare benefits and magical makeup, By Terry is a brand that not only aims to enhance beauty with cosmetics, but creates innovative products that also treat and care for the complexion simultaneously. I covet pretty much everything in their luxury range and treasure every By Terry product I've splurged on, including one of my all-time favourites, the Hyaluronic Hydra Primer. I recently repurchased this wonder product after finishing off my first entire tube, which previously featured in my Best + Worst: Hydrating Primers post, so I just had to review it for you.
Now that 2017 has arrived, there's only one post I can kick off the year with. It may be up a little later than planned, but it's finally time to bombard you with a mammoth list of my top products from 2016. Unlike my 2015 Favourites or 2014 Favourites, in which I listed my holy-grail products from every makeup category, I decided to restrain myself this year. As I had such an extensive selection of products when first putting together my edit, I thought I'd cut them down to the cream of the crop that I reached for most often.
As there's so many Christmas gift guides floating around at the moment, I thought I'd keep mine to a minimum this year. For the first of two last-minute gift guides, I thought I'd focus on beauty stocking fillers. Sometimes thinking of smaller present ideas is the most difficult, whether you're picking one low-budget secret santa gift or a stocking stuffed full of goodies. You can never go wrong with choosing some beauty bits, though. So, if you're in a quandary about what to buy, I have a few suggestions.
Winter manages to suck all the life out of my skin. So, in order to avoid looking too ghostly when I'm at my palest, adding a touch of cheek colour becomes an ever more important step in my makeup routine at this time of year. Currently, I have five favourite blushes that I flit between using, depending on my mood and the look I'm going for. As you can see, I tend to wear warmer red, rose and peach tones during A/W, rather than softer pinks which I reserve for spring and summer.
I always get most excited about beauty during the last, few months of the year. What with all the parties and Christmas festivities to dress up for, my beauty routines go into overdrive and I end up re-discovering lots of old favourites, whilst I try to mix up my makeup a bit more than usual. With my current selection focussing on glowing skin, sparkly eyes and bold lips, you can definitely tell that I'm in the festive party mood!
No matter what makeup look I'm going for, I always try and make my eyes look larger. Naturally, they're quite small and round, so there's a few tricks I use to make them appear bigger and create more of a feline shape.
On a daily basis, my hair suffers a barrage of abuse - heat styling, brushing, colouring and even tying my hair up at the end of the day does my hair no favours. Fortunately, I have a solid routine in place to repair my locks when they're feeling dry, damaged and dead at the ends, protecting them from future breakage at the same time.
Now that I'm well in to my twenties, I'm fortunate that most of my skin issues have calmed down. I do suffer from some congestion around my chin and jawline, though, and those unwelcome blemishes that miraculously spring up right before a big event or special occasion. It's like they have a sixth sense or something, isn't it? To tackle any sudden spot surprises, there's always been one, blemish-busting treatment I've kept firmly stocked in my skincare stash, and that's the La Roche-Posay Effaclar Duo +. So, when I received a tube of the new La Roche Posay Effalclar Duo + Unifiant*, I couldn't wait to try it.
Hourglass is one of those brands that causes a frenzy of excitement every time they release a new product. Add in a whisper of the words limited-edition and beauty-obsessives far and wide immediately reach for their purses, no questions asked. It may sound a bit OTT, but their products are so worth the hype that I can totally understand the buzz that their makeup line generates. Out of their entire range, the beautiful, exclusive palettes that are released at Christmas time are by far their most coveted. Most recently, we've all been caught up in a flurry of eager anticipation for the Hourglass Surreal Light Ambient Lighting Edit to hit the shelves and yes, it really is as good as it looks.
Sunkissed recently asked me to take part in their #BeautyToTheBeast challenge, creating one glam look and one more traditional Halloween look, both using their Moroccan Escape Saharan Beauty Palette*. To go with the overall tones of the blushes, bronzers and eyeshadows within the box, I thought I'd go for a neutral, daytime look, but inject a pop of A/W colour with a bright red lip and create a deer/fawn look for the Halloween option. Both looks are really quick to achieve and the one palette pretty much includes everything you need (apart from a few extras which you don't have to use, like foundation), which shows just how versatile it is.
A/W is always the best time for beauty, in my opinion, as the trends are right up my street and there's always an abundance of limited-edition collections to swoon over. Lately, there's been so many amazing, new releases that I've barely been able to keep up, so I've put together a little list of what I'm currently lusting after.
Hair Xpertise is a brand that never seems to get much coverage in the beauty world, but their haircare range is so impressive that they deserve some recognition. I've dabbled with a few of their products before - their Kera 10 Treatment is one of my favourite leave-in conditioners and their Argan Oil Treatment leaves hair so sleek that I'm always complimented on my tresses whenever I use it. Most recently, I've been trying out the new Hair Xpertise Argan Renew Shampoo and Conditioner*, which are aimed at strengthing and protecting the hair, using an anti-aging blend of ingredients.
As soon as you hear the words double wear, you immediately think of the heavy, full-coverage foundation from Estee Lauder. The one that gets the notoriously bad rep as being cakey and almost paint-like, but which actually gives a beautiful finish that's long-lasting and can look natural-ish, if you blend, blend, blend. Whilst the original base may hog the limelight, there is another star of the show within the same line of foundations - Estee Lauder Double Wear Light. I've been reaching for this underrated product non-stop recently, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on it.
