Tag: Make-up

Makeup Bag and Cosmetics Refresh

On By samanthaIn HEALTHLeave a comment

For my recent birthday a friend gave me a pretty new make up bag from one of my favourite shops, Oliver Bonas. It has taken pride of place on my dressing table and replaced the Clarins freebie that I have been using for years. It also provided a good opportunity for me to go through my cosmetics and throw away some of the embarrassingly ancient, and probably horribly unhygienic, items. I have used the same Nars blusher everyday for about six years and it pained me to throw it away but even the case was falling apart. My optician told me that, in an ideal world, mascara should be replaced every six weeks because of the bacteria that accumulate with each use, definitely time to bin my antique Estee Lauder. I also got rid of my Clinique eyeliners, most of which had lost their caps, and replaced them with one from Lancome in a shade called Bronze. The Lancome is very creamy, easy to blend and the shade is flattering.

I also received a Clarins bronzer as a gift in the lightest shade they sell. I have never used bronzer before. I am very pale and have always thought it would just look too orange on me. I’m also not really sure how to apply it, I had to watch a YouTube video by Ali Andreea, a stunningly beautiful make up artist, to find out. Her tutorials make everything look easy and it is tempting to buy all of the high-end products she uses. The Clarins bronzer is comprised of two shades and the darker colour is definitely too deep for me so half of the product will go to waste. The lighter shade is pretty though when sparingly applied and I like the matte finish. I did buy another Nars blusher though so I am good for six more years!

I have also been trying out This Works Perfect Cleavage & Neck Serum I am not a fan of the fragrance but the product is lovely to use and easily absorbed. My neck feels well moisturised but not sticky after use. Like the rest of the planet, I spend too much time looking at a screen and am keen to avoid the dreaded “tech neck” and hopefully this may help. I have a This Works Stress Check Mood Manager spray in my home office for days when my work email inbox is filling up faster than I can empty it, it’s actually surprisingly effective and the fragrance is beautiful. I will be trying more products from this brand.

So, some successful and much appreciated gifts. Pretty things may not be important but they do make life that little bit nicer.

Thank you for reading

Samantha

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M.A.C. Mineralize Skinfinish Powder & Wet ‘n’ Wild Colour Icon Lipliner

On By samanthaIn HEALTHLeave a comment

My daughter bought me this M.A.C. powder for Christmas after I dropped my brand new Clinique compact and had tried to salvage the contents by mixing the broken up powder with surgical spirit as per a YouTube tutorial . It worked perfectly but my face smelled of newly-pierced ears which wasn’t exactly pleasant. Sometimes you just have to admit defeat!

I don’t believe I have ever used a M.A.C. product before, I always find the sales assistants slightly intimidating and their beauty counters are always so busy that it is difficult to browse. I also perceive it to be a brand for younger women. They sell a variety of face powders offering different coverage and finishes. SkinFinish powder, currently £27.70, comes in a black plastic, domed compact which seems unnecessarily chunky and looks a bit cheap in my opinion. There is a very small mirror inside. Annoyingly there is no applicator at all. The powder is best applied with a brush but I did buy a couple of velour powder puff applicators from Boots for about £1.50 and I wonder why M.A.C. don’t include something like this.

I have to say that SkinFinish is the second best best pressed powder I have ever used, my all-time favourite being Lancome’s Dual Finish which appears to have been discontinued. The M.A.C. powder is very flattering on my skin. I have the shade Light. It isn’t at all chalky and just a tiny amount provides excellent, lasting coverage with a slightly dewy finish. I am seriously impressed. I would suggest, if you have skin that gets a little oily throughout the day, then another, more matte, powder in the range may be a better choice.

I purchased the Wet ‘n’ Wild lipliner purely because I needed to make a tiny purchase to qualify for free delivery on an Amazon Prime order This product was £1,75 and has turned out to be one of my favourite beauty purchases in years. The shade, Brandy Wine, is a tiny bit darker that my natural lip colour and I just fill in my entire lips with a very light layer and then go over the top with some lip balm, usually Burt’s Bees. The colour lasts for hours and looks very natural. The lipliner pencil is very long and I can’t imagine needing to replace it for years. A bargain!

Thanks for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Rosa Rafael on Unsplash

Perfume Pretenders

On By samanthaIn HEALTHLeave a comment

My twenty year old daughter had some friends round and one of them walked into our house on a cloud of what of what I assumed was Chanel’s CoCo Mademoiselle. I have a love-hate relationship with this particular fragrance. I love it on anybody else but it smells slightly sour on me and is guaranteed to give me a migraine. There is a note in many Chanel fragrances that gives me a headache, I can really only wear Chance. My daughter’s friend said no way could she afford Chanel, they are all students, she was wearing Soft Iris by Marks & Spencer.

On my next visit to M & S I found the scent, priced at £10 and sprayed a tiny amount onto my wrist. An hour later it smelled prettier on me than Madomoiselle and, more importantly, no migraine! I bought a bottle. The range also includes a few other well-known perfume “dupes”. Pink Pepper is apparently a dead-ringer for Lancome’s La Vie Est Belle, a wildly popular and very sweet perfume . Fresh Mandarin supposedly smells like Caroline Herrera’s Good Girl. The girls in Ms Herrera’s fragrance campaign have to be good while the boys get to be bad, rather unimaginative gender-stereotyping in my opinion but that is beside the point, the CH perfume is lovely and it comes in a high-heeled shoe shaped bottle. There is also a Jo Malone wannabe in the range, Sea Salt and Neroli . M & S sell a pack of all the various testers for £5 which is fantastic value. I think this would make a nice little gift for a teenage girl.

Perfume is one of things that is so easy to get wrong and is is an expensive mistake if you end up with a £75 bottle of something that you no longer like after a couple of days. I have re-sold so many used-twice bottles on eBay over the years. Now I generally buy Chanel body sprays, which are around £30, because they are less strong than even the EDTs and are not headache inducing. They last for ages too as you only need to spray a tiny amount. If I am considering a new fragrance I will usually buy a sample on eBay and wear it for a couple of weeks or so before committing to a fully sized bottle but, most days, I don’t bother with perfume anymore.

While in Marks and Spencer I also bought a small make up bag for my handbag, a bargain at £6, and a delicious bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich!  

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

A Lifetime of Lipsticks

On By samanthaIn HEALTHLeave a comment

Woolworths, Romford 1984 and teenage me is purchasing the best lipstick I will over own. Woolies own Evette brand in the colour “Mulberry Wine”. The perfect pinky brown which stayed on all day. If only I had known that it would be discontinued I would have bought all their stock with my pocket money. In the forty years since then I have been on the hunt for another colour I have liked so much.

It’s odd that I can remember the name of just about every lipstick I have ever owned. The first was Boots No 17 “Twilight Teaser”, a bluesh, iridescent mauve. I’m sure it looked terrible but it was certainly eye-catching. I wore it to a non-uniform day at school and every girl asked me what colour it was, a new experience for me as I definitely wasn’t known for my style. Another Boots No 17 favourite was the safer and very pretty “Poncho Pink”. I also loved the Miss Selfridge “Kiss and Make Up” range and wonder if Charlotte Tilbury took some of her inspiration from their lip-print embossed branding. I wore their “Iron Maiden” and “Copper Knobs” shades” around 1987. 

When I began to have some disposable income I graduated onto the more expensive brands. Estee Lauder “Spiced Cider”, a rust colour, was one I wore for years along with Lancome’s “Brun Nu” and “Rose Nu”. I went to a wedding around 1991 and actually asked one guest which lipstick she was wearing as I liked it so much and thought it may be “The One”. Clinique “Super Nectar”, I bought it the next day and it looked absolutely hideous on me.

I actually still have the lipstick I wore too my 1994 wedding, a rather daring matt red with incredible staying power, Rochas shade 56, it’s pictured below . I experimented with dark, blackberry colours at this time as well although always had to blot them so there was just the feintest stain left. My favourite which I also still have, although it smells a bit dubious after all these years, was Chanel Shade 36. I now buy Clinique’s Almost lipstick in Black Honey which is a very wearable balm-like tint.

Post Pandemic I seem to wear less make up but I don’t generally leave the house without a quick dusting of face-powder, usually Clinique, and a slick of some lip product or other. Loreal’s “Organza” is usually my go-to everyday lipstick or a tinted lip balm from Dr Paw Paw. I also love Estee Lauder’s “Pinkberry” which is the closest I can come to wearing a nude without looking totally washed out.

I never have been able to find a shade as perfect as my Woolies lipstick but perhaps it was just the thrill of being grown up enough to wear make up for the first time. I also hold fond memories of the little tins of four blushers sold by M & S around the same time but I certainly wouldn’t wear them now. Having said that. my make up choices have barely changed in all these years and perhaps it is time to change things up a little bit.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha