Monday, 17 February 2014

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,


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