Review - Daniel Sandler products

Okay, so yesterday I told you what it was like having a makeover from a celebrity makeup artist, and today - as is my wont - I'm going to go through a few of the products from the Daniel Sandler range of cosmetics.  I'll mainly be looking at the basics and the standout products today

I'll start with Daniel Sandler Waterbase Foundation with Concealer. Actually, I find this would be more accurately described as a tinted moisturiser, with a concealer, rather than a foundation, but this is not to denigrate the product in the slightest.  It's a fairly lightweight, sheeny finish, that gives you a light to medium (buildable) coverage.  But I will say this, in the jar, this looks ... well ... orange.  It's actually pretty scary looking!

The jar you can see here is the "fair" shade.  Now, I'm fairly pale (but not that pale) but I think my cooler, more porcelain-skinned friends might struggle with trying to use this to build coverage, to be honest.

As it is, on my skin, it gives me a great glow, and evens out my skin-tone beautifully (see the gold opalescence in the bottle there?  Flipping lovely), but I suspect that on paler skins, you'd need to use it with a light hand to avoid a certain element of tangerine creeping in.  On my dry-ish skin, it leaves me with a dewy finish, but oilier-skinned sisters will definitely need to set it with powder.

You can see how the shade "pops" a little against my skin there, but I have to say that this does blend well, and won't leave you with a tidemark, even if you are paler than the shade in the jar.  I find applying it with a brush is a great way to buff it into your skin.

The bottle is a little awkward though, having a wide mouth, and a "paddle" attached to the lid to enable you to get the product out, which leaves me with worries that once you get towards the end of the bottle, it'll be exceptionally difficult to get out the last drops of your product.  It's a problem I have with La Prairie's foundation bottles too, to be honest.

There is a concealer hidden in the lid, and this is a brilliant, brilliant concealer.  Light, but opaque enough to conceal, and does not dry cakey, or look dry on the skin.  This is important for me, as I find that very many concealers are far too heavy for the under-eye area, and have a tendency to settle into under-eye lines that simply aren't ordinarily visible without the concealer in the first place!

It's a little paler in shade than the foundation in the bottle:

I just love this, if it was sold separately, I'd buy backups of it in a heartbeat!  I don't actually use much in the way of concealer (heathen that I am), as I find a lot of them merely draw attention to your flaws rather than hide them, but this one is great for under-eye shadows.

I mentioned that you might need to set the foundation, naturally, there is a powder in the range, and that is the Daniel Sandler Invisible Blotting Pressed Powder (catchy!).  Housed in a handsome pewter case, this is a pressed white powder that is totally colourless when applied:

Ignore the instructions to use the (rather rubbish) puff,  you need a brush for this. I find that a very slight dusting of this is more than enough to see off any shine, and, as it's colourless, it doesn't change the shade of your base, and this also makes it suitable for any skintone.  I've used this with a variety of foundations - I'm fickle - and it works well over all of them.  I've also used it over bare (moisturised) skin, and it smoothes wonderfully.  I like it as much as my ELF HD powder, possibly more, as it's a lot more portable.  Not to mention far more classily packaged! It can be slightly prone to "glazing" in the pan if you use the puff, so be aware that you might need to give it a bit of a scratch with something rough once in a while.

So, onto Daniel's infamous blushers: Daniel Sandler Watercolour

Shown above are two shades (there are seven in total), on the left is Truth, and on the right is Cherub.  Truth is a lightly peachy-nude shade with a hint of silver shimmer, and Cherub is a lovely baby-pink.  Both give, on my pale yellow skin, a light flush of colour, and their lasting power is amazing, far better than most powder blushers in my collection, and certainly better than very many cream blushers. Separately they're lovely shades, and I find that by mixing a drop of each, I can get a really nice shade for a little more drama.

However, there is a very definite learning curve to using these products.  As you've probably guessed from my description of their lasting powers, this means that they're actually quite highly pigmented, and this means you have to handle them with caution.  A single drop of either is actually more than enough for both cheeks, and if you pick one of the darker shades in the range (Dare for instance), then it's probably enough for your lips too.  After spending a few days sporting fetching blush-splotches on the back of my hand, I discovered that the best way to apply these is to actually drip one single drop of the blush onto a synthetic (very important) blush brush, and then apply the colour to my cheeks.  Once blended, these babies stay put, and are very flattering shades, they've very quickly become absolute staples in my routine, particularly Truth, which is perfect for a barely there glow that suits almost all makeup looks.

And now onto the infamous waterproof eyeliners (which were actually what I was meant to be looking at before Daniel decided I needed a makeover!) which you can see here: Daniel Sandler Waterproof Eyeliner. There are six shades in the range, brown, grey, black, purple, green and blue, the latter three of which are brand new to the range.

The brown, grey and black are matte shades, but the purple, green and blue have a hint of gentle shimmer.  Daniel describes these three as his "jewelled" shades, and I can see what he's getting at, the green in particular is a stunningly pretty shade, which is surprisingly appropriate for the waterline.

These pencils are soft, creamy (the above swatches are one pass with the pencil over bare skin), and very blendable.  Once set - which is fairly quickly - these do not budge. They will fade over the course of 12-14 hours or so, but rain won't budge them, and even if you cry whilst wearing them, you won't end up with rivulets of black or green over your face.  You can trust me on this, I've cried a lot recently for one reason or another, and these babies have never let me down. They are great - I much prefer them to Gosh's waterproof liners, for example, my only real criticism of them is that the purple needs to be MORE purple!

So, there you go, a quick (ha!) look at some of the basics from Daniel's range, anything you think you'll be trying?  I'll have a look at the colour cosmetics at a later date.

The Fine Print: These were an unexpected gift from Daniel, however, I've never been one to turn down an opportunity to look a gift horse in the  ... er ... eyeliner. Links provided in this post are not affliate links, and are just provided for informational purposes.  They're from a variety of sources because I'm a flibbertigibbet.