Thursday 11 December 2014

beauty | Laura Mercier foundation primer - 'Radiance'

 



I blame this purchase on the beautiful Lily Melrose. I was watching one of her GRWM videos on Youtube and saw her use the Laura Mercier radiance primer - and afterwards her face literally glowed (in a nice way).

Cue me heading down to the LM stand in Selfridges and picking one up myself. I decided to go for the smaller version, just in case I didn't like it on myself. It was £18 which I find so reasonable because it really does last a lifetime - I got this a good six months ago (maybe even more!) and I'm not even half way through yet.

The product itself is very liquid and blendable, and has a pink/nude tone to it. It's got a slight sheen to it as well, which obviously gives the skin the glow of radiance. 

I like to mix a blob of this with a blob of my foundation whenever I go on a night out and do a full face of makeup. It leaves a beautiful glow to my skin which looks totally natural - look at the swatch of it blended above, where it just looks like skin. But when the particles hit the light, it really gives an illuminating glow to the skin.

I look perked up and my skin has a 'lit from within' glow to it. Overall, I'm bloody impressed with this primer, it adds so much to the skin, lasts a lifetime and only costs a little more than your basic drugstore primer.

Have you tried this primer? What did you think?

PS; are we all loving the background in these recent pictures? I bloody love this fluffy jumper from Topshop!

Wednesday 3 December 2014

beauty | Maybelline Colour Dream lip pencil in 'Minimalist'






I hadn't heard much about the Maybelline Colour Dream lip pencils before I went in and bought one myself - for some crazy reason I didn't even go ahead and look at the swatches online beforehand. 

I fancied a nudey-pink lip colour that I could wear day to day, and my favourite lip texture is matte or velvet so I thought the Maybelline pencils sounded pretty much up my street. I chose the shade Minimalist as it has a lovely pink tone to it and I thought it would be flattering on my skin tone. When I did swatch it in store I noticed there were flecks of glitter going through it, but thought it wouldn't be too noticeable on the lips.

When I tried this product on at home, I was almost instantly disappointed. The pencil tugged at my lips and settled into all the cracks and dry points on my lips. It also bunched up around my inner lips and left an awful pink line all around the inside of my mouth. Another big no for me is that the flecks of glitter are so noticeable. Some of them are so big, they stand out from a long way away. 

The only positives I can say about this product is that the colour itself would be lovely without the glitter, and that it doesn't feel completely drying once on. It's very creamy and doesn't dry out - but it definitely emphasises all of my lip problems.

Overall, I don't think I'll be delving into the rest of the colour range and will be leaving these products alone. Luckily, they only cost £4.99 from Boots so I'm not too bothered that it didn't work for me.

Have you tried this lip pencil range? What did you think?