Top Five Favourite Blushers

Since I had my colour-draping back in June, I've been looking to replace my not-quite-right golden coral blushes with something a little cooler and pinker. For a long time, I never wore blusher at all, fearing I'd look like a clown, or Aunt Sally or something, but I realise these days that my makeup simply isn't complete without blusher, and finding the right shade is deeply important.  I've been building up this tiny blusher wardrobe for the last few months, and here are my current favourites:

Clockwise from bottom left, we have:

Cargo - Bali
Art Deco - Blush Couture
Illamasqua Velvet Blusher - Peaked
Smashbox Halo Longwear Blush - In Bloom
Laura Geller Blush'n'Brighten - Ethereal Rose/Sateen Subtle Berry

All are pinks or plums of varying intensities, except Smashbox In Bloom, which is a rather pinked coral, which is probably the brightest shade here.  Swatches:

 
 Swatched in the same order, you can see Cargo Bali has a slight hint of blue microshimmer, giving the pinkish coral a cooler overtone.  Art Deco Blush Couture is a lovely soft plum with a smooth satin finish.  Illamasqua Peaked (in the centre) is a very cool raspberry purple, which is a glorious shade, but I find it rather hard to apply naturalistically, it definitely needs a duo-fibre brush and an extremely light hand.  Smashbox In Bloom is a pretty pink-coral that is great with an extremely natural look for lightening and brightening my face.  I love it.  And then there is the Laura Geller Ethereal Rose, which is the one I've had the most use out of recently. It's probably the most subtle of the five here, but it still gives a great subtle glow, and a fabulous highlight effect.

Here's how they photograph with a flash:
 

As you can see, only Peaked and In Bloom have a matte finish.

What's your favourite blusher at the moment? 

The Fine Print: Mixture of PR Samples and purchases.

This post: Top Five Favourite Blushers  originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Current Favourite Blushers

I didn't see the point of blusher for the longest time, and so, for many years I didn't use it.  I've had high-colouring for many years, so the thought of adding MOAR COLORZ to my skin was a scary one, to say the least!  These days, however, I'd rather leave the house without lipstick than without my blusher!

Blush brightens the face, and can add shade and contour to even the widest of faces (personally, I don't bother with all that contouring malarkey because, as has been extensively reported on this blog, I am a cack-handed muppet), but blusher does make such a difference, making my skin look alive, and helping me avoid looking like a trainee goth who forgot to attend the lesson on  not dressing like an accountant.  

After my recent colour analysis, I've found blush difficult, as the shades which are nearest matches to my fan do NOT look good on my skin - NARS Sin is consistently recommended as a good blush for someone with my colouring, but ... well, it's too dark and far, far, far too brown for me, so I challenged myself to find some more suitable blush shades. 

Initially, I didn't think I had any, aside from one, but after digging deep into the recesses of my blusher drawer, I managed to scramble up seven or so ... (may you never know the horrors of saying "But I don't have any like that" only to discover you're lying to yourself about it ... anyhoo, here's my pick of my blusher collection:

Clockwise from top left we have:

Accessorize: Merged Baked Blush in Sensation
MAC: Blushbaby
Stila: Convertible Colour in Lillium
Laura Geller: Ethereal Rose/Sateen Subtle Berry
Benefit: Hervana
Burberry: Cameo
Bare Minerals: Ready Blush in The One 

In the past couple of years, I've been pretty much inseparable from NewCID iGlow in Coral Crush, but I've been trying to use pinker shades recently, and, even though a couple of these have a touch of coral to them (in particular The One by Bare Minerals - bottom left in pic above), I think the pinker look is just a bit more "healthy" to my newly-educated eye.

Accessorize is very pink, and works well as a highlighter, also, it was very cheap!
MAC Blushbaby is an old, old favourite, but it's a little on the brown side, so needs applying with a light hand.
Stila Lillium is a great neutral shade of blush, and one I wear over tinted moisturiser.  You can wear it on your lips too, but that's really not a good look for me.
The Laura Geller has been my day to day staple blush recently.  A slightly berry pink, it has a gentle sheen, and is very pretty without making me look too flushed.
Benefit Hervana is a very pretty cool-toned matte pink.  It's a little on the sheer side, but it's a good shade for just the lightest possible flush of  colour.
Burberry Cameo is another subtle berry shade, which is on the matte side, it's a lot more pigmented than the Laura Geller, so again, needs a lighter hand (or a duo-fibre brush).
Bare Minerals is a heavily-pinked coral, and is a good easy to wear shade, even if it is a little bit warmer than the other shades in this selection.  I LOVE the Bare Minerals "pressed" powder formulations, and need to pick a few more up.

So, what are your go-to blushers at the moment?

The Fine Print: Mainly purchases, ironically.

This post: Current Favourite Blushers  originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Laura Geller Vanilla Nudes Collection

Following this tip-off from the lovely girls over at London Beauty Review, I cracked and bought my second Laura Geller set from QVC.  I bought one last year, loved it, and totally forgot to review it, so I'm not making that mistake again!

The set comprises:

• Balance n'Brighten Foundation (choice of Tan, Regular, Fair and Porcelain - I bought Fair)
• Baked Cheek Dream blush and highlight compact in Neapolitan
• At Long Lash mascara in black
• Italian Marble Lipstick in Banana Berry
• Baked Eyeshadow and Eye Rimz in Vanilla Toffee and Black Cherry

 Here's a closer look:

Laura's range is based around baked minerals, and I've always found her products to be really high quality.  Last time I bought a Laura Geller TSV, I bought the foundation in Regular, and have found it to be just a tad too dark for year-round wear, so I selected fair this time:

I love the camouflage appearance of this in the compact!  It's a mixture of pigments, designed to correct and cover flaws, and it's delightfully soft and silky on the skin.  It gives light-to-medium coverage, I've found, but you can also use it as a very nice finishing powder.

The highlighter-blush combo is very nicely done too:

These have been swatched very heavily in order to show up on the photo, you have a pale yellow (it's not gold as I anticipated) a strawberry pink, and a browned-berry shade, which makes a good contour colour if used alone.  Mixed together, you get a nice, sheeny medium-pink which is very flattering, but I couldn't get this to show up in swatches.  Suffice it to say that it's a lovely healthy pink shade, which will be suitable for cool skin-tones and paler warm-toned ladies.  If I had a criticism of the palette, I'd suggest that it would have been nice to have a wider strip of the pink so it could be used alone, but it's a minor quibble really.

The Vanilla Toffee  and Black Cherry Eye Rimz is a lovely product with a dreadful name.  On the skin, Vanilla Toffee is a creamy copper shade, perfect for a polished but not too over the top daytime look.  Black Cherry has a slight hint of pink micro-shimmer in with the black base.  It's not too pigmented though, so, again, is perfect for a softly smokey daytime liner look.  Both shades can be applied wet for a more intense "foiled" look.

The Italian marbled lipstick is the one product that gave me pause before ordering, as Laura was making a big song and dance about how the lipstick contains banana extract, and I was worried that the lip colour would be banana-flavoured as a result.  I'm happy to say that the lipstick is actually both scent- and flavour-less.  However, it's a very nude shade on me, owing to all the yellow in my stick, and, as a result, it's about as flattering a thing that is not very flattering.  At all.  It has a nice, light balm-texture though, and is very moisturising, so if concealer-lips are your bag (baby) then you'll love this.

At Long Lash mascara is very wet, and very thin, mascara - I normally prefer my mascaras a bit drier - but it has very good lengthening properties, and it doesn't flake or run during the day.  There was some hoo-ha on the show I was watching that made a song and dance about the mascara having a semi-permanent colouring effect on the lashes, but I can't say that I've noticed my lashes being any darker after removing the product.  The brush is nice and thin, and is shaped well to coat the lashes though, but it is not very volumising, so for me, this is very much a nice "day-time" mascara, for a nice natural look.  You will need to use an oil-based remover when taking it off though, as it's stubborn and likes to stay put ...

Overall, I'm really glad I picked this up and, some minor quibbles aside regarding not enough pink in the blusher, and the lipstick making me look like death warmed up, this is a really nice kit, and well worth the £33 or so I paid for it.  Laura's makeup is always well worth a look, and you can find a collection of her cosmetics on QVC, 

This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.

Nude Eyeliners

 Up until a couple of months ago, I didn't own a single "nude" eyeliner.  Having been tortured throughout the '80s by white eyeliner that was supposed to make you look more "awake" (but in reality just kind of made people look like they had been attacking their eyes with Tipp-Ex), I didn't really think there was anything you could realisitically use these pencils for.  I'd been reading a lot of love on blogs for Stila's Topaz, and when it came up on ModestyBrown's blog sale I bought it.

And now I own seven. <sigh> I'm not sure if it's a problem or not, to be honest.  I now have Une's Skin Glow, GOSH Go Bananas, Stila Topaz, Chanel Clair, Mally's double ended pencil, Laura Geller's I-Care pencil in Bone, and Guerlain's Secret Glow.

Did someone mention swatches?  Here you go:

Thoughts on each:

Une Skin Glow: This is actually meant to be a concealer, but I find it works marvellously well on the waterline, it's light and creamy, and lasts pretty well.  As it's meant to work on your skin to cover up blemishes, it works remarkably well on the waterline to disguise any redness.  A winner.

GOSH Go Bananas: This is actually a shimmering yellow.  Not actually that great as a nude liner, it's a little too yellow for that.  That said, this lasts astonishingly well, and won't actually disappear until you use a remover to take it off.  Great for highlighting around the tearduct rather than using on the waterline, if you ask me.

Stila Topaz:  Although this was the one that started off my collection, I have to say that it's very much not my favourite.  In fact, it's probably the worst liner on this list.  Why?  Well, it's very soft and creamy.  FAR too soft and creamy, in fact.  It's exceptionally easy to overapply (making it look like, well, ta bit like: Your eyes are leaking!! Leaking onto your face!!!  which isn't a great look outside of Halloween), and it can get onto your eyelashes a bit which just looks wrong, really.  Also, it's a little on the peach side, which means it's not a great match for most people's skin tone.

Chanel Clair:  Probably the hardest pencil on this list, it's very subtle, and all the better for it.  The firmness means you don't get the "ooziness" of the Stila, and the colour is very good too.

Mally: The second palest on this list, this gives a very similar effect to a while pencil.  If you're very, very pale, this might be a great choice for you.  It's a double ended pencil though, so means you don't get very much in there.  I'll be talking about the other half of this pencil next week ...

Laura Geller: Another hard pencil, this time in a shimmering ivory shade.  Possibly the prettiest pencil in the collection (and has a great built-in sharpener), alas, I can't get this one to show up on my waterline at all.  Such a shame!

Guerlain Secret Glow: A shimmering vanilla shade, this is glorious (and works well as a browbone highlighter too), being a powder, it's easy to overapply, and make yourself look a little odd, but I do love this one quite unreasonably.

Overall, the ones I'd buy again (and I did buy most of these myself) would be the Chanel and the Une.  What do you think?