Murad Hydro-Dynamic Quenching Essense and Ultimate Moisture Review

 It's hard work being a beauty blogger with sensitive skin, sometimes.  I'm a big fan of results-led, science-based skincare, and I have a clear preference for doctor brands that have a philosophy of really caring for skin, rather than just using skincare as line extensions for their other product ranges.  This isn't to say that there isn't good skincare coming from other more nature-based, or makeup-based ranges (there are excellent products in some unexpected places out there), but, when your skin is sensitive, finding products that are both results-led, and yet still bland enough not to cause flare-ups can cause problems.   Essential oils such as orange and lavender, used in a lot of "unfragranced" natural products, are a particular problem for my facial skincare routine, and I've found that I have far fewer issues with lab-based synthetics than many organic ranges as a result.

All of which is a long way around of saying that I really like the Murad Hydro-Dynamic range of products.  I'm both oily combination and sensitive-skinned, and at times I'm also very dehydrated, but I've found that the Hydro-Dynamic range helps on all counts.  The Murad Hydro-Dynamic Quenching Essence is a product I was introduced to last year, and I admit that I was a little underwhelmed with it at the time (it's more of a serum than I was expecting an "essence" to be - not a liquid at all!),  but I think I was a little less stressed and dehydrated last summer than I have been this year - the house move a few months ago took a lot more out of me than I was expecting.  This time of using, however, I like it much more, it adds hydration without loading the skin with too much oil, or that silicone-y feeling or being a gel, and leaves a lovely, velvety texture behind after applying.  It somehow just feels like it lasts longer on the skin than either a liquid or gel hyaluronic acid-based hydrator.

The Murad Hydrodynamic Ultimate Moisture is pretty much how I would describe my perfect moisturiser.  It feels luxurious and rich when taking it out of the jar, but it spreads and sinks into the skin beautifully, disappearing completely, but leaving skin feeling hydrated and supple, and ready for anything else that you want to apply afterwards.  It never overloads the skin, never triggers a reaction (despite what I might have applied first - in fact it's an ideal cream for using when trialling other products that you fear might cause a reaction), and hydrates without being greasy, clogging pores, or causing redness.  I love it.  It's bland, unscented, and inactive (in a good way), having only one job to do (hydrating), and it does it exceptionally well. So for those of us with over-excitable skin, it's a perfect cream.   I don't always get on well with Murad products, they have a habit of being just that little bit too strong for my skin issues, but  in this duo, I've found my happy Murad place.

At £59.50 for the Hydro-Dynamic Quenching Essence and £55.00 for the Hydro-Dynamic Ultimate Moisture, they might not be the cheapest products on the market, but for me and my stupid skin, they're great.  If you only get one, get the moisturiser, it might not set your world on fire, but you won't regret it. Your skin will love you for it.

The Fine Print: PR samples and purchases


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Niod Photography Fluid Opacity 12% Review

Niod has exploded over the blogosphere recently, and, whilst slightly intrigued by the good press they've been getting, the overly-complex names, and overly-simplistic product descriptions have been confusing the heck out of me, so I've largely avoided them.  However, a few people I know and trust on Instagram have had good things to say about Niod Photography Fluid Opacity 12%, so I figured I'd take my first plunge into the brand, albeit in a very small way.
 

Designed to make you look wonderful in photos (I've heard it described as an "instagram filter in a bottle"), it's an opaque white liquid, but it is suffused with microscopic gold particles which both reflect and refract light which lessens visible flaws and gives the optical illusion of "perfect skin".  So, is it a foundation or a primer?  Actually, it's neither, but in practice it turns out that it's a little bit of both.  I use it underneath foundation or tinted moisturiser, but couldn't personally recommend wearing it alone. It doesn't particularly extend the wear of a foundation (something I really expect a primer to do), but it definitely does enhance the look of foundation.  However, if you're a fellow sufferer of redness-prone skin, you might want to read on.

Housed in a an amber-glass apothecary-style bottle complete with dropper (which I despise), the liquid is thick and opaque initially, and oddly, rather dry.  However, three or four drops of the product blends away on the skin fairly easily, leaving a visible golden "glow" behind it.  I am rather pink-skinned, and the yellow-gold of Niod Photography Fluid 12% Opacity hides it beautifully.  Seriously, it might be the best redness-disguising product I've ever tried.  Personally, I find the glow that Photography Fluid leaves, whilst it evens out your skin beautifully, it doesn't actually give nearly enough (in fact, any) coverage to be worn alone without another base product on top. However your mileage might vary on that one - but I'm so pink that the thought of leaving the house without at least popping a smidge of tinted moisturiser on is horrifying to me! - but it is designed to be worn with other products at least. And as a layering product for redness disguising, it's second to none.  Genuinely.

left side, naked skin.  Right side: with Niod Photography Fluid 12% Opacity blended.

 The effect is hard to see in photos - which is pretty much as it should be, otherwise it'd look like a mask, and who needs that? - but skin does look "better", more polished and even than it otherwise would do, with or without other base products.  In person, the effect is even harder to see, there is no actual coverage built into Niod Photography Fluid Opacity 12%, so if you have visible flaws that you would normally see when not wearing foundation, that can't be disguised with refracted light (open pores, for example, or scarring), then they would still be visible IRL, without the "soft focus glow", that a camera lens gives to the product.

Lipstick is Burts Bees crayon in Napa Vineyard.

 And yes, it does photograph beautifully, it can't be denied.  Even on my oily-combination, pink, open-pore-plagued, nearing-fifty-ish skin, it looks dewy and glowing, even whilst I'm scowling in strong sunlight. 

On the downside, the texture is oddly dry and surprisingly thick (lots more gathers on the outside of the dropper than ever gets into the dropper, making replacing it into the bottle a very messy business), and it can occasionally stick on drier patches of skin meaning you have to be careful about blending, and the dropper is beyond annoying because of the texture. All of this would be less of a problem if the product was supplied in a tube.  But for me, the redness-disguising benefits (with or without a camera) outweighs both of those problems.   Niod have also introduced Niod Photography Fluid 8% Opacity which addresses one of those issues (texture), and I'll be reviewing that in a future post, but the glass bottle with the dropper remains a bugbear.

If you don't spend much time taking selfies, you might not need this, but if you have worries about redness and uneven skintone, then you definitely do.  I've certainly been happier with my selfies since I bought this.

The Fine Print: Purchase


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GOSH Cosmetics Foundation Plus+ 002, 004, and 006 Review

GOSH Cosmetics are probably my favourite mid-priced range, and lots of their recent releases have set my jaded old heart pulsing - their last, with the lip oils, the foundation drops and those beautiful eyeshadow palettes and matte eyeshadow sticks, was one of the best thought-through collections I've seen in quite a while.  I was lucky enough to be invited to dinner with the brand recently and have an introduction to the Autumn/Winter 2016 collection, and I'm happy to say it's really up to their recent standards.  Incidentally, did you know that GOSH were an almost entirely vegan brand?  I didn't, and I think it's brilliant.  They're not completely vegan, because they occasionally use beeswax in a couple of their lipsticks, but everything else is totally vegan-friendly.  Good news!

Anyhoo, my pick from this collection so far is this lovely new foundation formula: Foundation Plus+.  Designed to give full coverage (but is actually blendable down to a medium-coverage), but still look like skin and have a dewy finish - which is almost entirely unheard of in a full-coverage foundation! - it is layerable, and very blendable, and feels moisturising  in wear, thanks to a formula that contains both hyaluronic acid and algae, meaning it's also quite nourishing for a foundation product, and definitely hasn't lead to dryer skin.

l-r 002 Ivory, 004 Natural, and 006 Honey

It's highly concentrated in its squeezy bottle, and you'll need only the tiniest amount to cover a full face, even a gigantic melon-face like my own, but it spreads easily, and melds well with skin.  The amounts you can see on my hand there would probably have covered at least three faces.  You can build up coverage in parts where required (usually in my patches of high-colouring around my nose and cheeks in my case), and you can even apply with a brush to spot-conceal should it be required.  I find that it definitely does require setting with powder to avoid sliding, but it is a good, long-lasting formula once on skin and set.  I like it a lot.  Best of all, it doesn't look flat or overly matte once applied - there's very little more ageing than a thick layer of too-matte foundation on skin of any age, if you ask me.

Wearing shade 002 Natural here, with GOSH Cosmetics Velvet Touch Lipstick in Cranberry

I concentrated my application around my nose and cheeks here to cover up my redness, but sheered it out over my forehead, so you can still see (a hint of) my freckles.  I think it looks surprisingly natural for a full-coverage product, my skin looks like skin not vinyl, and I especially like the customisable nature of the product.  The only downside for me is that it can be very difficult to get the foundation out of the squeezy bottle, but at £9.99(!) for a full 30ml I can overlook that particular issue.

GOSH Cosmetics Foundation Plus+  comes in five shades: 002 Ivory, 004 Natural, 006 Honey, 008 Golden and 010 Tan, and is available in Superdrug stores now.


The Fine Print: PR samples and purchases


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Real Techniques Ultimate Base Kit - Limited Edition

I do love a Real Techniques face brush, or three (or four...).  For my money, there aren't many brands that make better brushes for base products, and their blush brushes are magnificent!  That said, I do not love their eye brushes at all - in fact, I've not met one of their eye brushes that I've used more than once before giving it up as a bad job, mainly down to their tendency to always be just that little bit too big and bendy for the job at hand, but that aside, Real Techniques are definitely hard to beat for a brush for practically any other purpose.  Their Ultimate Base Kit was therefore irresistible when the press release popped into my inbox recently.

Just released as a limited edition, the Ultimate Base Set contains an Expert Face Brush, which is the domed brush on the left there, which is perfect for blending and buffing foundaitons and other base products.  I have one from another kit, and it also makes a good blusher brush for any powder blushes you might have that are a little underpigmented.  Next to that is the Miracle Complexion Sponge - does anyone else not quite get how you're supposed to use these?   I prefer to wear as little foundation as I can possibly get away with these days, and I only really seem to see people wearing inch-thick bases using these for blending purposes.  Or do I not get it simply because I am just Really Old these days?

And finally there is a brand new and exclusive Deluxe Concealer Brush.  A bit wider than I would have expected for a concealer brush, this is actually great for buffing in under eye concealer, having nicely rounded bristles which are good for blending over larger areas (like around the nose) and being able to blend your concealer seamlessly into your foundation.  Not quite so great for spot-concealing things like thread veins (or even spots, come to that) where you'll need a brush that allows accuracy rather than diffusion.

It comes packaged with a cute white mirrored wallet, which you're meant to use to carry the kit around in, but it has two main problems; the first is that none of the elastic slots will allow the base of the Expert Base Brush through, and the second of which is how do you get a sponge into a flat wallet?  That said, it is a cute wallet with a good-size mirror, and if you stick to your smaller Real Techniques brushes, it'll be really handy for carrying those around with you.

For £20.99 at Superdrug right now, the Real Techniques Ultimate Base Kit is worth buying mostly for just the two brushes, and I'd treat the sponge (unless you love base sponges more than I do!) and wallet as freebies.

The Fine Print: PR samples and purchases


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Delilah Pure Light Illuminating Powder in Aura

I've been waiting to get my hands on Delilah's Pure Light Illuminating Powder in Aura ever since India Knight raved about it in the Sunday Times late last year! It sounded like it was the perfect powder, illuminating, not glittery, and she used the phrase "you absolutely do not look shiny, just lit from within".  Well, who doesn't want to look lit from within at all times for just £36?  I couldn't resist.  After India's review, it was sold out for months, and I ended up waiting till April to be able to pick one up.  Was it worth the wait?

Er ... I'm not sure, really.

 
 First things first, it's beautifully packaged in a hefty rose gold and pewter compact, and the powder within looks divine, delicately marbled with golds, peaches and lilacs, and yes, it does look lit from within. It is seriously, inside and out, a stunning piece of makeup.

However.

It is warm-toned.  Seriously warm-toned, and I am not. Delilah claim that it adapts to all skintones, but I find that I simply cannot use this powder alone because it just looks like I've painted myself pale peach. Warm-toned gals, and darker-skinned ladies will love this, but it's just too much for me. Oh, and it's shiny.  Really, really, really, shiny.  I have oily skin, and applying this over the top is just Too Much Shine.  Like I'm wearing a face made of pleather.

For me, as a face powder, it's a total failure, I'm afraid. But, in its favour, it makes a beautiful highlighter, and if I apply it in conjunction with a more matte powder it's wearable.  I've also noticed that parts of powder in the pan have "glazed" over - become hard - and this makes it more difficult to get it on the brush.  I hate it when powder products glaze over, as it's normally a sign of a cheap formula. In this case, I think it's just that the powder contains a high level of waxes to bind the pigments together, rather than it being a "cheap" powder, as such,  but glazing so much after only a month of use is very disappointing indeed.

It's not a universal powder, not by a long chalk, and that's a shame for me as a pale blue person. It'll be much less of a shame for you if you're warm-toned and light a highly reflective finish. As a result, I don't think I'll hit pan on this one for a long, long, long, long time, it'll never replace my much-loved Hourglass Ambient Light in Diffused, I'm afraid.

 The Delilah Pure Light Illuminating Powder in Aura costs £36 and mine came from Fortnums.
 

 The Fine Print: Purchase.


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Rodial Instaglam Compact Deluxe Banana Powder

 

I do love a yellow-toned face powder.  For years, my default face powder has been Hourglass Diffused, and, after hitting pan on my third one, I thought it was time to possibly try out a few different ones rather than just blindly buying the same powder again. Enter Rodial Instaglam Compact Deluxe Banana Powder.

A finely milled, soft yellow powder, Rodial are promoting this off the back of the current contouring trend as a "matte highlighter" for the high points of your face, and therefore allegedly perfect for that massive "Instagram Face/part time pornstar" makeup craze we're seeing everywhere at the moment.  Me being over forty, I can't be arsed, frankly, with attempting to create cheekbones on my gigantic wheel-of-cheese face, nor can I be bothered attempting to look like a Kardashian when my only plans for the day are popping over to Budgens in my pyjamas for a croissant or seven (which might explain my giant melon-head, now I come to think of it).  Oh, and you can "bake" your foundation with it, for all your "waking up wanting to be a Drag Queen" days. We all have them, apparently.

Actually, all I want a powder to do is set my foundation, even out my oiliness, and stop me looking like a boiled lobster on those days where my redness is too much to handle.  This powder fulfills all those functions really well.  It's highly milled, soft on the brush, and spreads over the face beautifully without caking.  I like it very much. It definitely hides redness, and does it very well.  I love the hefty compact too, it's a statement piece in any makeup bag.  However, it is very, very matte, and, being of a certain age, a very matte powder can exacerbate fine lines and wrinkles, and I worry that it's not the most flattering of finishes if I apply with slightly too heavy a hand.  I use it in conjunction with a powder that has a more gleaming finish which I will tell you about tomorrow to counteract that.

Is it a replacement for my beloved Hourglass Diffused?  Well, no.  But its a good powder nonetheless and I'll use it on days when I want a matte finish that lasts.

Rodial Instaglam Compact Deluxe Banana Powder costs £52 and is available instore now. 


The Fine Print: PR sample.


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Erborian 0.09 Touch au Ginseng Creamy Powder Compact

  
Sometimes I really shouldn't be allowed out, you know. I was at a launch with the founder of Erborian a couple of months ago, and I got so excited by this product that all I could say for about 20 minutes was "It's a jelly! But it's a powder! But it's a jelly!".  This is, I suspect, why I'm not going to be challenging any of the major beauty editors in the UK any time soon, I'm, like, sooooo eloquent and all that.

So, Erborian 0.09 Touch au Ginseng Cream Powder Compact, what is it?  Well, it's a powder.  but it's also a jelly (look, I don't get out much these days, and it may be affecting my vocabulary) and I find it makes a really nice base in its own right.  The 0.09 name comes about from the amount of water in the formulation, with only 0.09% aqua, this is basically a water-free product.  It's a hybrid powder that has an amazing bouncy texture, not in the slightest bit powdery, and I find that it smoothes out uneveness in tone beautifully.

What it's not, I have found, is a finishing powder. It's more of a base in its own right, though a sheer one.  It's rather a firm product and needs to be applied with a sponge, so over a foundation it's not the greatest finishing product as the sponge has a tendency to remove foundations, but over something like a lightly tinted CC cream (and it has to be said that Erborian make one of the best CC creams ever, especially now it comes in a new "light" version), or BB cream, it's rather wonderful. I use it on its own on good-skin days too.

Because it's a bouncy jelly texture it's perfect for carrying round in your handbag, because unlike powdery ... erm ... powders, it won't crack owing to being thrown around a bit. And it never looks powdery on the skin, and won't cake. It leaves a lovely velvety, glowing finish, and a little of it goes a very long way.  There's a good-size mirror in the lid too, for touch-ups on the go, though even on my oily skin, touch up requirements have been minimal, this has great lasting power.

It costs £27 from Erborian.com.


The Fine Print: PR samples and purchases


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Josie Maran Bright and Beautiful Collection

You know those nights when you're accidentally awake at 4am and find yourself mindlessly perusing QVC?  Well that happened last week, and two days later, I found the Josie Maran Bright and Beautiful TSV (today's special value) on my doorstep.  I've been pretty impressed actually, and thought you might like to see it too.  Click to read more:

Sunday Riley Artemis Hydroactive Cellular Face Oil

At this time of year, I always think a decent facial oil is an essential rather than an optional ingredient in your skincare regime, they add an extra level of protection to your skin in the wind and the rain and the cold, and they are a godsend on chapped and sore skin.  I have a few that I rotate (Clarins is an exceptional source of affordable facial oils on the high street, btw), but recently I have fallen, hard, for this little bottle of oily goodness.

A clarifying oil, with claims to be balancing (it also claims to be lemon-scented, but more about that later), it contains black cumin seed oil, pomegranate seed oil, lemon ironbark and lemon myrtle oils alongside milk thistle seed oil.  It's quite a thick and sticky oil, which you'll only need two or three drops of for your whole face and neck, and it is a bright and cheerful sunshine yellow both in the bottle and out.  The major claims for the product include soothing redness and irritation, it's an anti-inflammatory, and it is also said to neutralise the bacteria that causes spots!

Since I've added this to my regime, in place of other, thinner and lighter oils, I genuinely have noticed that my continual redness, which is the bane of my life, has been both less frequent to arrive and shorter-lived when it does actually appear.  In fact, there have been a couple of days when I've felt able to go without foundation, something previously unthinkable in the winter months!  It sinks in easily, even though it's rather sticky, and this is a blessing given the major "problem" with the product, which is:

The smell.

Actually, the smell is a major factor when it comes to any Sunday Riley oil, and it is both a blessing and a curse ... Sunday Riley Artemis oil smells like a broccoli graveyard farted on your face. (as does Juno, btw)  It doesn't last long at all, it's gone almost as soon as you apply, but even with my currently lessened sense of smell, it gives me pause before applying it.  Now, that out of the way, I actually quite like the fact that Sunday Riley doesn't bother adding a whole bunch of unnecessary essential oils to a product like this just to disguise the fact that the actual active ingredients don't smell the nicest.  It's refreshing that all the ingredients in the formula are there because they have a job to do on your skin, rather than on your nose.

The smell has an added benefit too, because you'll use less of it than you normally would an oil product, and when you consider that the bottle costs £98, this isn't such a bad thing!  I've used mine daily for three months, and I've barely made a dent on the 30ml bottle, I estimate I'll get at least a year's use out of it.  I'm lucky, mine was a gift, but I would definitely re-purchase this once it's run out.  I used to use Juno, and I loved it, but Artemis, for my money, and my sensitive, reddened slightly combination skin is even better.

You can buy Sunday Riley Artemis Hydroactive Cellular Face Oil from Cult Beauty

What's the worst-smelling beauty product you've ever used?

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Bodhi Neroli Luce Revitalising Face Oil

 Even in the summer, I'm a big fan of facial oils.  The opportunity came up to try a product from the range of Bodhi, and the Neroli Luce revitalising oil seeemed like the perfect choice, not least because ... well ... Luce is my nickname. But that's not the only reason I picked it, I swear!

Anyhoo.  Bodhi is a UK brand that's been around for a little while now.  Bodhi pride themselves on their ethical products, and quite rightly. All are free from parabens, sulphates, phthalates, propylene glycol, PABA, palm oil, mineral oil, paraffin, petrochemicals, DEA, synthetic colours or fragrances and animal ingredients, which is a heck of a list, and quite a challenge for a skincare brand.  It's quite a tightly edited collection of products, which is slowly branching out into new items, but on the Bodhi website, you'll find facial skincare, shower gels, massage oils, and more.  I can highly recommend the Jasmine Falls Relaxing Shower Gel, btw, it's divine. 

Containing a blend of neroli, frankincense, sea buckthorn and evening primrose oil, Neroli Luce face oil is intended for normal to combination skins, which might be a bit dull, or have a tendency to be slightly blemish prone.  After a stressful few weeks, my combination-oily skin was beginning to get me down, having lost its glow, and starting to get a little congested. 

Neroli Luce is a slightly thick oil, bright orange in colour, which means its packed full of beta carotene, which has an almost instant brightening effect once applied to the face - I find that the orange shade provides a great optical illusion, making my rather rosy-toned face look a little more even as well, which is a god-send! Even though it's rather thick, it's actually quite light, and is easily absorbed into the skin, with a minimum of massage, meaning you don't need to wait a long time in order to be able to apply your normal moisturiser over the top.

You can use it morning or night, or both, but I tend to use it on mornings when I feel I need a bit of a boost (so that'll be every day at the moment, then), and the beautiful scent helps raise my spirits every time I use it.  The combination of neroli and frankincense is a classic one, and I like to cup the product in my hands and breathe the scent in deeply before I apply to to my skin.

The bottle is small, around 15ml, but you use so little of it that I estimate it would last you a good few months, certainly I've been using mine every day for the last month and barely made a dent in the contents.  At £32 for a product with this quality of ingredients, it's a bit of a bargain too.  I'll be investing in a bottle of the Bodhi Desert Rose Rejuvenating Face oil for the winter months, I suspect.  

Ingredients:
Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Seed Oil, Prunus Armeniaca, (Apricot) Kernel Oil, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Oenothera Biennis (Evening Primrose) Seed Oil, Hippophae Rhamnoides (Sea Buckthorn) Fruit Oil, Citrus Aurantium Amara (Bitter Orange) Flower Oil, Boswellia Carterii (Frankincense) Oil, Lavendula Augustifolia (High-Altitude Lavender) Flower Oil, Pelargoneum Graveolens (Geranium) Flower Oil, Cymbopogon Martini (Palmarosa) Oil, Cananga Odorata (Ylang-Ylang) Flower Oil, Benzyl Alcohol*, Benzyl Benzoate*, Benzyl Salicylate*, Citral*, Citronellol*, Eugenol*, Farnesol*, Geraniol*, Isoeugenol*, Limonene*, Linalool* (*natural constituents of essential oils)

 The Fine Print: PR sample.

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Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder in Mood

I have literally spent months trying to track this bloody thing down.  Every SpaceNK I visit, I stare forlornly at the hole where Mood (and Diffused) are supposed to be, and then turn, dejected, back out to the street after yet another fruitless shopping trip.  FINALLY I managed to track this one down on Liberty.  I'm still on the lookout for Diffused, btw, so if you find anywhere that has it, please, please, please let me know!

This one, however, is Mood, a light lavender powder designed to brighten most skintones.  I'm prone to (admittedly very pale) sallowness, particularly when extremely tired, and this helps perk me back up.   

The Ambient Light powders are milled incredibly finely, and don't contain any opaque pigments so they're rather light and ethereal on the skin.  I find they they do give a "polished" look to the skin, and they have a rather glowy finish, so you need to apply sparingly.

Here you can see it swatched heavily on the right, and blended out on the left of my hand, and you can see the sort of finish you will get. I use this most days, in particular over tinted moisturiser.  I like the brush too (although you have to buy it separately and it's £30), and it's great for diffusing the powder across the skin.

I prefer this to more traditional powders, as it never looks cakey, and doesn't look like you're wearing any makeup at all, which is the greatest thing you can get from your makeup.

Now, if only I could find the yellow Diffused version .... 

The Fine Print: Purchases.

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Guerlain Christmas 2013 - Les Meteorites "Crazy Pearls".

All this week, I'm featuring my picks of the Guerlain "Crazy Paris" Collection for Christmas 2013.  On Monday, I showed you the nail varnish in Sulfurous and the UV topcoat, and yesterday, it was the turn of the new Rouge G in Provocative. 

Today it's the turn of what is the cornerstone of any Guerlain Christmas collection, Les Meteorites Perles:

Thankfully back in a tin pot this year (I hate the cardboard pots of perles that occasionally get released, if you're spending £37 on a pot of face powder - and you are - then you want it to last), it's black-laquered, and it is adorned with the words "Champs Elysees" embossed in neon letters around the sides.  Whilst I love the black and pink that is the signature of this collection, I have to admit that I'm not a massive fan of this particular tin this year, I much prefer the sleeker styling of the Meteorites Perles de Nuit from Christmas 2011.  This is ... whilst I hesitate to actually say it's tacky, I'm think I'm going to have to say that it's a  ... bit tacky.  So there.

Right, having got that off my chest, let's take a look at the perles, eh?

New to the mix this year is a "tangy" pink, cool toned, it mixes with the gold, white, lavender and beige of the rest of the perles quite well:

It's quite a bright pot this year!  They're still delightfully scented with violets, and give the same "airbrush" finish that you get with the normal perles.  They're not coloured enough to act as a blusher, and don't appear pink on the skin.

I tried my best to swatch the perles, but this is a hiding to nothing, as you can see below:

I always have a pot of Les Meteorites on the go, they're easy to dip into, I adore the smell, and love the airbrushed, non-cakey effect. But, whilst it might be a collectors item, I'm not a huge fan of the tin.  Still, you don't wear the tin, eh?

What do you think of the packaging this year?

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Guerlain SS13 Meteorites Perles Du Paradis

 

No Guerlain collection is really complete without a new set of Meteorite perles. These slightly sparkling, and highly scented (of violets), beads of colour are highly flattering in use, and I find myself reaching for my pots of them quite regularly.  They're particularly effective for the ... er ... more mature lady, as they don't leave you with too matte a finish to your maquillage.  Next season the perles have changed somewhat, in some ways for the better, and some ways for the worse, you'll see.

The box opens up to reveal the familiar Guerlain rosette, and is embossed with the company name as usual.  It's a pretty baby pink, but ... it's cardboard.  I'm not entirely happy about this, I like a bit of luxury from Guerlain, and their outstanding packaging doesn't usually disappoint, but this does.  The reason, however becomes clear when you realise that this year, Meteorites have been supersized:

Here you can see the Meteorites Perles Du Paradise alongside Perles De Nuit (from the Christmas 2011 collection) on the left, and a pot of non-limited edition Meteorites perles on the right. The pot is about a third larger in size than the regular sized tins, and contains 53g of product compared to the regular 30g.

So, let's see what's in the pot, shall we?

Have to say that I'm adoring the cute puff in the pot this time around, so much more luxurious looking than the sponges you normally get in the regular pots.  Shall we see the perles now?

This time around, they're a bit brighter than the normal pastel-shaded perles, with very definite hints of mauve and pink, lilac, rose-gold and silver.

And, I have to say that these are very sparkly indeed compared to the normal Meteorites, in fact, I'd go so far as to say they're a better body product than they are a face powder.

Here I've swatched them very heavily to show the differences in the shades, in use, when swirled with a slightly firm brush, they're actually just a slightly pink shade, which a fair amount of sparkle:

Hopefully you can see the sparkle there.  As well as having supersized the package, they've enlarged the perles too:

You can see the difference better here:

Huge, eh?

Overall, this is a bit hit and miss for me.  An extremely pretty product, with a gorgeous puff (something I've thought that Meteorites has been missing for a while, actually), let down slightly by what is, frankly, extremely cheap packaging, and has slightly too much sparkle ... Gorgeous for collectors, but a bit of a let down for serious powder users, unless you want sparkly face dandruff...  It'll cost £43 when on counter in January.

 The Fine Print: PR Sample.

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Sneaky Peek ...

My desk fills up with random beauty clutter throughout the week whilst I'm figuring out what I want to be writing about.  I wander around the flat, picking things up as inspiration strikes, and it all ends up here. Along with random wrappers and press releases and, well, stuff.  As you can see, perfume and skincare have been on my mind at the moment.  All this (and a tiny bit more ...) coming up on the blog this week!  If you have any specific requirements, then now is the time to let me know ...

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