Holy Grail Beauty Products #1

After sixteen months, my Benefit Hello Flawless foundation is almost coming to an end (what a long-lasting product!), so it's been about time that I go on the hunt for a new foundation. I thought about sticking with Benefit because I love them so much, I was even slightly swayed when I received some free samples of Urban Decay's Naked Skin foundation. But I decided that I wanted to go cheaper this time, and braved the drugstore counters!

Now, this may sound slightly ridiculous, but I've always been too scared to try drugstore foundations. Because I didn't brave foundation until I was 19, and I've always gotten matched at 'high end' make up counters, I just didn't trust myself to pick a shade that matched my skin tone. I know, silly, isn't it? However, on Friday I decided to woman-up, and I frog-marched myself, bare faced, into Boots, ready to test out the many foundations they had in stock.

I did my research beforehand. It's no secret that I love a good beauty guru on YouTube - they probably take up over a third of my subscriptions. So I looked up some videos about the best drugstore foundations and let the makeup whizzes do the talking. Once I was aware of what foundations worked best with sensitive and dry skin, I hovered over to the brands that catered to that, namely Bourjois and Rimmel.

I settled on the Bourjois Healthy Mix Serum (not to be confused with the Healthy Mix Foundation) and I've got to say, I love it! After a bit of testing on my jawline, I settled on colour no. 53 - Light Beige, and it is a perfect match for my skin tone (ten points to Gryffindor)! This gel foundation claims to boost radiance and give you an even, revived complexion, and they're not wrong! It's pretty light coverage, which is perfect for me, since when I'm wearing foundation it's not really to cover up, it's more to even out my skin tone. But you could build it up to a medium coverage and it would look just as nice. It is also vitamin rich, containing fruits such as lychee, goji berries and pomegranate, which explains its gorgeous smell. Priced at £10.99, and overall, get's a big thumbs up from me!

12 hours after application… No cakey-ness!

I still love Benefit, of course, but I've found that during the course of the day, the foundation tends to gather and cake up on particularly dry patches of skin, which is not a great look! (I also had the same result with UD's Naked Foundation) So Bourjois' Healthy Mix Serum takes the cake, but don't worry Benefit, there are still many other products of yours that I can't live without!

Next holy grail item was an impulse buy - Rimmel's Wake Me Up Concealer. I already have a concealer, Collection 2000's Lasting Perfection concealer, which I bought some time ago when all the beauty gurus raved about it. And they were right to, it's a brilliant product, really good pigment. However, for me, I just find the formula a bit too thick, and out of the (small) selection of shades they have, not one of them matches my skin colour completely, so I had to settle for a slightly lighter one. Also, with my particularly dry skin, I also find that it emphasises that dryness, which again, not a great look.

So when I was taking a look at Rimmel's Wake Me Up Foundation (nice product, but a little too sparkly for my liking), my eyes hovered over to the concealer and I fell in love. Not only did I find a shade almost exactly my skin colour (030 - Classic Beige) but the formula is simply gorgeous. It glides on so smoothly, is buildable to the coverage you're after, brighten's up dark under-eye areas, and - this is the big one - doesn't emphasise my dry patches. Jackpot!

And that is part one of my Holy Grail makeup products! Hope you enjoyed reading, I have a few more to come.

Which brings me onto a small announcement - I will be setting up a regular schedule on this blog, finally! Monday will be beauty posts, Fridays will be fashion related posts, and if I have time midweek or at the weekend, I'll throw in a miscellaneous post in the mix, like a music review or a lifestyle post. I'm excited!

Ciao,

Aussie 3 Minute Miracle

I've never been particularly loyal to any shampoo or conditioner as I've never had one that really treated my hair the way I would like, and frankly, I haven't loved one enough to use time and time again. That is until I stumbled across Aussie. After I ombre'd my hair, I asked the beauty bloggers of Twitter what hair masque or deep conditioning treatment was best for very damaged and bleached/coloured hair. One of those lovely ladies replied and recommended something by Lush or Aussie's 3 Minute Miracle, and since I'm not a big fan of Lush myself, I opted for the latter.

I was not disappointed. It really is what it says on the tin (or bottle) - a three minute miracle. I noticed the difference in my poorly damaged ends after just a couple of washes. My hair looks noticeably less damaged after just three weeks of bleaching my heavily coloured hair and I can tell you one thing, I'm never going back! Not only has it repaired my hair, but it leaves it feeling so soft and smelling wonderful.

I was also overjoyed when I stumbled into Wilkinson and found a fabulous deal which promoted three Aussie products for £10! Since my current Aussie product is coming to its end, I grabbed myself two more bottles of 3 Minute Miracle for heat treatment and reconstructing and a colour mate shampoo. I can't wait to start using them, they all smell gorgeous!

Ombre, olay!

So yesterday I took the plunge and finally ombred my hair! I've always loved the ombre/dip dye look, it adds so much texture and depth and makes hair look sun-kissed and glorious. I thought I'd make a little post just outlining the process and my experience with DIY ombre-ing.

I used the Jerome Russell Bblonde Highlighting Kit, which can be bought from most retailers such as Boots and Superdrug, but I ordered a box online. I was a little apprehensive at first, there's so much colour in my hair from previous dying and bleaching, I was scared that it would all go terribly wrong. But it was great, and I'll definitely be using it again should my hair ever require more bleaching.

The kit comes with power bleach and cream peroxide, which you mix together using a handy little mixing brush. Mixing it all together was a strange experience, at first the power made the solution go all pasty and lumpy, not comforting in the slightest, but it slowly smoothed itself out into a moose-like substance. I didn't apply the bleach straight to my hair from the brush, I used a 'scrunching' method recommended by several DIY  dip-dyers (I did some pretty thorough research). This way it stops it from looking streaky and gives the appearance of gradual and more natural lightening. I left it on for about 40 minutes before washing it out with the sachet of conditioner it came with.

 Just after first appyling... nervous!                               Bleach working its magic 30 minutes in.

It was a very nerve-wracking experience, but the bleach took to my hair surprisingly well considering all that my hair has been through in the last couple of years. And now I'm left with this end result:

I adore it! You can tell it's been done at home as opposed to professionally, but that doesn't really bother me. I'm gonna have to take even better care of my hair than I already do, but it doesn't matter because it was so so worth it. I adore my new hair, it is the perfect remedy for these dull winter days.

"Put on some lipstick and pull yourself together."

I've always loved the idea of lipstick and the women who wear them. We've all seen those chic French girls with cropped hair and a dash of red lipstick, making them instantly look fabulous. It is such a simple way to add instant glamour to your look. Even though I've always thought of myself as a 'lipstick person', for a long time I only really had one in my make up bag. It's only in the last year or so that I've started experimenting with different shades and acquiring a modest collection.

So without further ado, let's take a peek at the lippies that take residence inside my make up bag. 

Starting with the nudes, we have Nude Delight by Rimmel London and L'Oreal's Kiss and Blush. As you can see, the L'Oral has been worn down a bit, and that's because it's the oldest on in this collection, the very lipstick that started off my love affair. As you can see from the swatch, it is very shimmery with a lightly pink tinge, an all-round great girly lipstick. I bought the Rimmel so that I could have a more matte nude lipstick, for days where I don't want to bring attention to my lips but still want to wear something on them.

Onto the 'darker' colours (for a lack of a better word). The first, a fairly new one, a classic red by MUA (it doesn't have the name at the base so you'll have to bear with me on the lone swatch). Does it really need elaborating? For times I want the 'classic French chic' I mentioned before. I think everyone should have a staple red lipstick in their make up bag. Its also really matte which I like, but I always have to make sure to moisturise my lips beforehand so they don't dry out after a while. Next is Showbiz by 17, a nice vibrant pinky-red that really shows through once on your lips, and its a nice spin on the classic red (how many more times am I going to say 'classic' in this post?) Finally we have Rimmel London in Electric Plum. First of all, I really love the name, whenever I pick this lipstick up I'm always saying it in my head, and sometimes out loud, over and over again. Don't know why, I just love it. This is one I typically wear at night, like to a meal or a night out, as I'm not really a fan of dark lipstick colours in the day.

And finally we have oranges, the newer and braver additions to my palette. I started getting into orange/coral lipsticks after discovering beauty blogger Zoella and her Youtube channel. Had I not been exposed to her before, I would have thought that orange was an absurd shade of lipstick to wear. But seeing how good and so not crazy it looked on her, it swayed me to have a try. To ease myself into the bold new colour, I started off with Magnetic Coral by L'Oreal, still orangey but with some pink undertones to soften it up, and I have to say, it's my favourite and my go-to daily lipstick. In fact, I even wear it at night sometimes too, I love it that much. Typically when my make up and outfit combination is quite dark, to brighten up and so that the look isn't too severe. Since I had some much luck with this one, I decided to purchase Zoella's favourite Infrared by Topshop. This one is definitely a true orange, and I have to say, it took a bit of getting used to when I first tried it on. Though in the swatches they look quite similar in colour, you can notice the difference a bit more when actually on the lips. I'm still getting used to it, but I really like it, and I think when I find the right look to wear it with, it will be in its element.

So there we have it, my small collection of lipsticks. It's a good one I think, each one has a purpose, and I can guarantee to find one to match my mood or what I'm wearing. Do you have a favourite lipstick brand/shade?

Hidden Treasure by Topshop

Happy New Year! I've been gone for a while having a well deserved break from the madness, but I'm officially back in business. I've had a lovely long break in Brighton, and tomorrow I'm travelling back up north to Sheffield (if all this snow will allow me, that is) and having another quiet week before being thrown back in to uni and work and the like! But anyway, on to the matter at hand...

I've recently made a purchase that I'm absolutely in love with. I've had my eye on this nail polish for literally months but have been holding off buying it until now. I'm not very much into nails (as you will see from my shoddy paint work below) but whenever I do fancy giving my nails a coat of paint, I usually go for darker colours - black, navy, plum, or even a dark, dark red if I'm feeling wild. One of my favourite repeat purchases is Barry M in Navy, and for a while it was the only nail polish I would buy. Which is why I was slightly hesitant with this one. I liked the look of it and the colours coming out at me, but I wasn't really sure how it would transfer on my nails.

Hidden Treasure 204 - and my poorly neglected cuticles

Unfortunately this picture doesn't do the colour much justice. But I love it. It doesn't have the darker tones that the bottle suggests, but the colour is still amazing. In different lights and different angles, it provides a range of pretty shades. At one angle its a minty green, at others its gold, and under certain light it even looks a bit coppery. It's like having three nail polishes in one! I can forgive there not being any of the blues and purples that the bottle promises because I love it nonetheless. It may have even opened my eyes a bit to bolder coloured nail polishes. You exactly won't be seeing me sporting a pastel or neon coloured nail any time soon, I'm definitely keeping my eye out for those metallics when shopping for my next polish.

(PS. I've now had this blog for over a year - woo!)

I Heart Benefit

Different kind of post than usual today, but it's something I've been wanting to write about for a while now. You can blame all the beauty gurus I've been watching on YouTube and following here on Blogger!

A couple of months ago I was wandering around Meadowhall on one of my days off from uni when I decided to take a gander inside the giant Boots they have in there, and as usual, I got attracted to the bright colours and general prettiness that is the Benefit counter. I had been wanting to use foundation in my make up routine for a while now, but as I had never gone near it before, I had no idea what shade would suit me or how to even apply it (sounds silly saying that now!) I got talking to the make-up girl and so she sat me down and tried some of their products on me. I've had my make up done at the Benefit counter before (I must admit though, they do go a bit crazy and slap it on you sometimes) so I already had an idea of what I wanted, but it was great seeing a range of their products and how they looked on me.

I stuck with my mission of wanting to buy a foundation, but I also wanted a primer as well, so this is what I ended up with:

The foundation is Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow Brightening Makeup (that's a mouthful!) in the shade 'Honey'. It's not the lightest shade but I think it's the second or third along, and I was quite surprised that my skin has gone so pale. I think it's all these years living in England, I need a couple years in warmer, brighter climes to get my olive skin back! But I digress, the foundation is a perfect match for my skin tone, it has great coverage and, the best part, it brightens my eyes up so much! I know it's got 'brightening makeup' in the title, but I was still amazed at the results. I have a naturally quite dark eye area, not to mention prominent bags and lines, so this foundation does wonders in making me look more bright and awake, especially on days where I've had little or disrupted sleep, making the whole eye situation even worse.

Coupled with this I also bought The POREfessional PRO Balm Primer. I'll admit, I don't really have that visible pores, on the whole I think I actually have some pretty good skin, but as I've mentioned before I have quite a few lines under my eyes, and this does the trick. Though it doesn't eliminate them completely, it does give the appearance of a much smoother finish which you can't go wrong with. Not to mention that it really makes the make up stick, which is great since I'm a big fan of bronzer.

how it looks on (apologies for the vacant expression)

Two months down the line, and I am extremely happy with my purchases. In fact, I even know what my next one from Benefit will be! The make up girl used an amazing moisturiser on me before applying my make up, and slipped a sample of it my bag when we were at the counter. It's the b.right Triple Performing Facial Emulsion with SPF 15 (what is it with Benefit and their long names) and I must say, it's amazing. It feels so refreshing on my skin and not at all oily. Even under my make up it felt so fresh and wonderful, I was sad to see my sample run out. I really can't wait to finish my current moisturiser so I can run out and buy this!

The Female Chauvinists? Anti-Feminism in Women's Magazines

With my first year of university almost over (yikes!), I still have one final essay to write for one of my modules: Communicating Sex and Gender. Out of the many choices of essay titles, I chose the question that explores the representation of women in magazines such as Glamour and Cosmopolitan.

My research consists of looking up academic texts on semiotics (the study of signs and their meaning), books on media representation, and of course, flipping through glossy magazines and taking in their contents. As I looked through the various magazines I have acquired over the years (which consist mainly of Glamour, with the occasional issue of Cosmo), I realised that despite their Girl Power mantras and their fearless female attitude, these magazines aren't very feminist at all. 

In Cosmo's recent 40th anniversary issue (featuring Holly Willoughby on the cover), columnist Suzanne Moore wrote an article titled "Why Cosmo Rocks!" and explained that when Cosmo first hit the newsstands in the early '70s, it was, at the time, seen as this radical and outrageous thing because its main USP was female pleasure. It was one of the first magazines to insist the right of women to talk openly about and enjoy sex, be in control of their own bodies, and to 'find joy' in clothes and beauty. It was a very sexually liberating time for women everywhere. However, fourty years later, this 'sexually liberating' thinking still seems to be on the top of the list for most of these magazines. Fashion and beauty ranks pretty highly on their list of priorities too. Very rarely do we see articles on female politicians (NOT including small segments on newly elected world leaders' wives), sportswomen, women in science or women who campaign for women's rights all around the world. Instead, the pages are filled with beauty ads, fashion tips, stick-thin models and celebrities and endless articles about how to drop a dress size and how to give him the best sex he's ever had.

With all the influence and impact these kind of magazines have on women, especially their younger readers, they have so much power to do so much good. Instead, they impose messages like, "you have to look like this, act like this, dress like this..." and rather than encouraging us embrace our bodies, they make us want to change and manipulate it, and making us feel like failures when we cannot do so. Whenever they do touch on serious subjects such as Equal Pay Acts, it always gets overshadowed by the abundance of beauty and fashion and relationship columns they provide us with each month. It's like saying, "Yeah, we're not happy, but there's nothing we can do about it. So let's just make a bit of noise, then sit down and look pretty." Not to mention how predominantly straight-orientated these magazines are. So many articles in women's magazines deal exclusively with heterosexual relationships and treat lesbian encounters as 'experimental' and 'crazy' and, in general, don't take same-sex relationships seriously. In this day and age, where campaigning for LGBT rights have come so far (but still have further to go), what kind of message is this sending to future generations?

When I was fourteen, I read an article in Glamour written by Claudia Winkleman in which she shared with us her 'tips' on how to land a husband. It basically was telling women to do everything in their power to change themselves and lie to their partners in order to get that ring on their finger. It included things like doing the washing up dressed in your best lingerie and pretending to like football whenever he was around - and once you're married to revert back to your usual self because "you've got him now." Unfortunately I no longer own that particular issue in order to reference from it in more detail (I imagine I threw it out in a fit of feminist anger), but it made an impression on me because I realised that some women will do anything to please men, just to get themselves a husband.

What's recently struck a chord with me is the aforementioned 40th anniversary issue of Cosmo, and their competition to find curvy girls to represent a new size campaign with Evans, a plus-size clothing store, and to sign a contract with model agency Excel Models 1. Though Evans is a plus-sized clothing shop, storing UK sizes 14-32, the five girls they picked as the winners were all on the smaller end of the 'plus-size' spectrum, all wearing dress sizes 14-16. First of all, I find it ridiculous that a size 14 is even considered a plus size, especially factoring in that the average British woman is a UK size 14-16. I don't think it's a cause of celebration that these girls got contracts, because then we are implying that a size 14/16 is fat, which it is not by any means. Surely, if they wanted to properly represent 'curvy' and 'plus-sized' women, they would have searched for body-confident women who wore sizes 20 and up?

But I don't know, maybe I'm expecting too much from these kind of magazines. Maybe if we want to read about powerful women in politics we should do a Google search or read the Guardian or watch the news instead (however, all of these mediums still undermine women a lot). Maybe women's weekly and monthly magazines should stick to what they're good at: telling us which shoes go with which handbags, what shade of lipstick best suits our skin tone and how to have a healthy sex life. Most women go to glossy magazines for light reading and pretty pictures of celebrities. But I still think people underestimate the power of these magazines, and that those two hundred-odd pages really have an impact on how women think of themselves and each other. If they don't change what they put within their pages and how they communicate it to us, then we're just going to carry on silently living in a man's world. But at least our hair will be perfect, right...?

Edit: I ended up getting a first in that essay :)