Colour Me Beautiful eye shadows

April 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

CMB Palette

L-R: Khaki, Ocean, Heather, Mocha

I thought I would dip into the back of the make up drawer of dreams today and pick out something that I haven’t used for a while. This custom eye shadow palette falls into the category, although I have no idea why – the colours are really nice accent colours for me and they are a good formulation.

About 20 years ago I went to a Colour Me Beautiful consultant to “get my colours done“. I am guessing most people reading this have an idea of what that means, but in case you don’t, the consultant works out if your skin has cool or warm undertones and which tone and depth of colour suits you. I came up as a Deep Autumn and was given a palette of rusts. greens and in general “sludgy” colours.

A couple of years ago, trying on items from the wardrobe, I just felt that the colours I had been buying for the last fifteen years just weren’t cutting it any more. I did a quick colour update with a friend and realised that in common with many women my colour had cooled, and I now had more pink undertones to my face. I got a new palette of colour swatches to play with, and also put together this eyeshadow palette of custom colours for me.

I’ve stuffed this to the front of the drawer and will get this back into circulation. I’d forgotten how nice it was.

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NARS Tinted Moisturiser

April 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

NARS Tinted Moisturiser


Having spent a few pennies at the NARS counter recently, the SA gave me a few samples to try and one of them was the new NARS Tinted Moisturiser in St Moritz.

I recently was recommended to swap from my Bobbi Brown Tinted Moisturiser to the Laura Mercier oil free one, and I have become devoted to the Laura Mercier version. Fantastic coverage and being a combination skin, the oil free suits me perfectly.

So how did the NARS offering measure up? On the pro side, it really does illuminate as advertised. And the colour that the SA chose for me was a great match. The downside for me is the formulation. Although it’s billed as oil free, it actually felt really oily and almost claggy when I applied it. And the coverage is not a patch on Laura Mercier. For younger, dryer skins than mine it might work really well. But I can’t see this deposing my Laura Mercier version.

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On parenting a near teen

April 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

There are lots of downsides to parenting a near teen. No longer does a little warm body climb onto my lap and ask for a “duckle, Mummy”. There are no more pudgy little hands finding their way into mine as we walk down the street.

But when you take three trainee eye rollers on a day out, you realise what fantastic company they are. Their sense of humour is coming on a treat. Witness this conversation, which had me crying:

Boy 1: You won’t believe what happened to my cousin’s cat. It had this accident, yeah, and they had to chop its leg off. And then two weeks later, it had another accident and they had to take its eye out.

{short pause}

Boy 2: Is is called Lucky?

I miss the pudgy hands and the cuddles, but the comedy sure makes up for it.

Photo via Flickr Creative Commons, Richard Step

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NARS purchases

April 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

NARS have opened in my local House of Fraser. Believe me when I say this will prove catastrophic for my bank balance. I bought 2 eye shadow duos in Brousse and Silk Road, a lipstick in Niagara and a blush in Gilda.

Silk Road I absolutely adore. Both shadows in this duo have a little sheen to them, and the warmth is lovely. I can see me wearing this through Spring and Summer with no problems. Brousse I have bought mainly as accent colours, but I may use them over the full lid in the evenings.

I’ve been after a good coral lipstick for ages, and Niagara fits the bill so much better than the BB Tiger Lily I bought recently. Gorgeous. This will be a staple.

The Gilda blush is the only one I’m not sure about. It’s coming up much darker than I thought, so is going to need a light touch.

Overall I am very happy with these purchases. They are currently at the front of the make up drawer of dreams.

Niagara


Brousse

Brousse

Silk Road

Gilda

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Beauty comfort blanket

April 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment


Sometimes you look at the make up bag groaning drawer of product, and think: “do you know what, I have sod all idea what to do today”. It’s on days like that that I reach for my beauty comfort blanket, aka my Bobbi Brown palettes.

Aficionados of Bobbi Brown will already have spotted the glaringly obvious: the pans in these palettes are are round. I have no idea when BB swapped to square pans – it was a while ago – which no doubt means that for hygiene reasons I probably should have binned them a while back. But hey – no eye infections here and I wash my brushes, so whatever. I prefer to think of them as “vintage”.

My cynical side was turned up to maximum wattage when I saw that BB had swapped to square pans, thus rendering my round palettes unrefillable. I was convinced it was a ploy to get us all to go forth and buy more palette. Not me, baby. I stood firm. I was not for turning. I was the King Canute amongst Bobbi Brown customers.

So what do we have here? The six pan palette contains the four original shades (Bone, Toast, Taupe, Mahogany) that I bought from my first ever trip to Bobbi Brown about 13 years ago. Don’t panic – these are replacements of those shades, so they are marginally less vintage than that. So in the six pan, the top row is (L – R): Mahogany, White, Taupe. Bottom row (L-R): Bone, Toast and a Colour Me Beautiful cream blusher in Lychee. The three pan palette (L-R): Nude, Slate and Woodrose.

The reason I think I find them a comfort blanket is that they are just simple and straightforward. They are matt – not that easy to find these days, they are classic Bobbi Brown and they pick up and apply well. They are my non thinking make up and I love them.

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Neutrogena Anti-Ageing Hand Cream

April 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

My hands doing a Sahara impersonation

I am a devoted user of Neutrogena’s hand cream and body lotion. They are super effective, don’t have an overwhelming fragrance and keenly priced. I recently spotted in Boots a new addition to the Neutrogena stable – an anti-ageing hand cream, which promised to intensely moisturise, reduce and prevent brown spots and contained an SPF of 15. That was straight in the 3 for 2(6 for 4, 9 for 6) basket.

I’ve put it on my hands last thing at night for three nights now. And here’s the result. Neutrogena, this one really doesn’t like me. I’ve never known my hands to do this before – I am wondering if it’s the SPF. In any case, this one is for the bin, not the win.

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Estee Lauder Chelsea Rose

April 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Lots of my beautiful friends have embraced Spring, even if the weather hasn’t quite caught up yet. I am seeing loads of beautiful colours appearing on faces all around me. Bright pink lips seem to have captured the imaginations on many, and here’s my take. I don’t have the confidence to rock NARS Schiap – I’m not quite ready to attract that much attention to my lips, so here’s a suggestion to have something just a couple of notches down. I’m loving Estee Lauder’s Chelsea Rose, which is part of the Signature Lipstick range. The formulations is lovely, totally non sticky and long lasting on me. I’ve been teaming it with Bobbi Brown’s Rose lip liner. Spring in lip form. We just need the weather to catch up now.

Estee Lauder Chelsea Rose

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NOTD: no 7 Totally Teal

April 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

No 7 Totally Teal

With grateful thanks to my friends at Sali Hughes’ Facebook group, who persuaded me teal was OK for the over 40s. I am loving this.

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Dior Garden Clutch No 2

April 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Dior Garden Clutch no 2

The alignment of the planets that was a 10% off weekend in Debenhams, at a time that I had some points on the Beauty Card, found me perusing the eye shadows at the Dior counter. A few years ago I signed up as a tester for the Beauty Bible and in my test pack was a Dior quint called Incognito. I’ve used it to death and every time I reach for it I’m impressed by the quality of the shadows. So with some points burning a hole in my pocket, I decided to see what Dior had by way of Spring colours. The arrival of the first rays of sunshine in the UK had me hankering for something other than my normal muted browns.

This limited edition Garden Clutch is available in 2 colour ways, and Number 2 was soon heading home with me. The shadows are brown, shell pink and a very light pistachio. There’s also a pink and a peachy gloss. I’ve enjoyed playing with this – everything is very wearable. The shadows pick up on the brush beautifully and have a real shimmer to them. The brown is possibly a little light to act as a liner, but that’s me being really picky, and it’s not like I don’t have a few brown liners that will do the job already. I suspect this will get even more use in the Summer months and it will be first in the bag when I go on holiday in June. Pretty packaging and lovely colours. Spring is here.

Shadows and glosses

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NOTD: No7 in Beanie

April 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

No 7 in Beanie. Yes, I forgot the bottle.

I am new to this nail painting lark, having last painted my own nails about 20 years ago. But I thought I would give it a go, so invested in Revlon Base Coat, 3 for 2 No 7 varnishes and Seche Vite. As I post this, it’s Thursday and the polish has just started to come off. It lasted FIVE days. I have no idea what they put in that Seche Vite, but it really seches and really vite. I’m really happy with this is a first effort – if anyone had any recommendations for other nail products to try, I’d love to hear them.

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