Face - Lottie London, Glossier, The Ordinary

 Man, the search for a light coverage foundation and a decent under eye concealer is TOUGH! I thought I might as well share some of the products I actually like after trying sooooo many!

P's, Generally speaking I'm a light-medium or medium depth in foundations and a peachy tone.

Re primer; Everyone has a primer, even if they don't actually use it! No primer (no matter how raved about or cult) ever seems to have helped my make up stay on or stay flawless so I'd rather not add even more stuff to my skin! When it comes to powder, it's used almost entirely to set felt tip pen eyeliners and that's it. I never ever want a matte face! So I'm not going to talk about those products because they're not really part of my daily routine!

My every day makeup drawer. Let's talk about it!

Let's not pretend that any tweezers are as good as tweezerman, ok?! They are brilliant and last for a loooong time.

This is a recent discovery. The older I get, the less coverage I want. Heavy foundation just doesn't sit well on my skin, so I tried the glossier skin tint and it was beyond sheer on me. I want light coverage but not no coverage! I thought I'd give Lottie London velvet skin tint a go and I really like it. Sadly the shade range is crap, but I just bought two and mix them to get the right shade!

It really does have a velvety texture and it's really easy to use. Light coverage and dewy but not too shiny. It really is a great product and I hope they extend the shade range.

Concealer for my under eyes has always been a fucker. Even more so now that I have more lines. I can't do heavy or dry concealer.

I also can't do pink toned and super light concealers. That's why I didn't go for the cult Becca under eye corrector. It only comes in two shades, one of which is too light and too pink. The other is the right shade but is too dark. So spending £21 didn't seem sensible! I recently tried this revolution conceal and fix.

This stuff is intense. It's thick and pretty full coverage. Dryish but not overly drying. I'd wear this for full on night out makeup, but it's also helpful in a thin layer underneath other more dewy or sheer concealers. Also good for concealing blemishes as it's genuinely very thick! You only need a teeny tiny bit. Also has a decent shade range and isn't too pricey. The swatches are rubbish though because they don't include the shade names (WHY?!), but I think they are a bit lighter in reality than on the swatches. This golden sand is really bright under my eyes and Tan is the right shade for my face right now, but in spring / summer I think I'll be using Tan under my eyes and Deep tan on my face.

 The Glossier stretch concealer is my best friend though. Many would find it too shiny and glossy, but give me shiny over flaky and dry any day! I have a few different colours. One that's light and for my full face of hardcore makeup moments, one that's just a bit lighter than my skin so it's brightening under my eyes, and one that's for all over my face ( or under my eyes when I'm a bit tanned!). If it was cheaper and easier to get out the pot I would use this as both foundation and concealer. If glossier ever make this in a stick I will 100% move over to full face of stretch concealer!

Cloud paint is perfect. Blends like a dream. Seems like it would be too intense but then just melts into the skin and looks surprisingly natural!

Beam on the apples for rosy cheek days, dusk under my cheekbones for vixen days.

I like aerosol setting spray and the Morphy one is expensive! Was happy to find that kiko also have them! Nice and easy finish that doesn't feel wet at all.

Easiest and best eyeliner. Not the longest lasting but doesn't bleed out or get into my sockets. I'm also writing a big blog post about my eyeliners because I have loads, but this is my desert island eyeliner!

Scrub 'em then moisturise 'em! Sugar plum fairy lip scrub is a seasonal product but Lush have a great range of edible and excellent sugar scrubs like this one here. Lip service balm for hardcore hydration and rose lollipop for kissing and smelling like sherbet! I'm defo going to do a lipstick post with my favorites at some point.

This is my every day makeup. Lottie skin tint on my face, glossier stretch concealer under my eyes and cloud paint on my cheeks. L'oreal liner, lush lip balm and a spritz of kiko setting spray. It's a light coverage in the hope that I look mostly natural.... the best version of myself in other words! I had a couple of lovely spots on my forehead, and I don't use much product up there (just enough to even things out!) but it's helpful to show you that it's a nice light foundation while not so sheer that it's just a tint! And the glossier stretch concealer is pretty effective huh? Shiny too, but I like that about it.

Now then. It's only fair to show you the other foundation I like!

This is an odd little bottle. The Ordinary serum foundation has actually become a staple. It's serum but also somehow has more coverage and is drier than other foundations I've tried. It goes on very easily and is thin in consistency, but is a decent medium coverage.... so this is my fancy foundation!

It's a good foundation but it's hard to describe. Its almost like face powder mixed into a liquid! So if you have dry skin this one might FEEL nice, but it will stick to your dry patches and therefore might not be for you. But combination skin like mine seems to like it! I use a more glowing setting spray for this (currently the kiko wonder woman one, but previously a barry m one!). Again, not a great shade range so I've got two that I mix. It's a great price point so I'm happy to have two on the go at the same time! Needs a vigorous shaking before every. Single. Use! That will be obvious when you look at the bottle. Also, be aware that it oxidises massively! So you may think it looks light on first squirt, but the colour will change quite dramatically so trust the official swatches! 

This is The Ordinary serum foundation, glossier stretch concealer and glossier dusk cloud paint under my cheek bones. A bit more full coverage!

I am aware that my camera phone doesn't show much difference between the foundations so I'll just say this. My top picks for a natural look on my 39 year old skin is Lottie London velvet skin tint and glossier stretch concealer, that's honestly all you need. But TWIST! Garnier tinted BB cream is what I use in hot weather when I just want to even my skin out and have a bit of SPF, but don't want to wear proper make up!

The Revolution will be Blogevised

Yeah yeah, I'll name my posts what I want okay?!

Leah did a great post about a new make up brand called 'Revolution', and I knew I had to try it. Like Leah I love MUA makeup, so the thought that this sister brand (or however you'd describe it!) would be equally cheap but with a more diverse range of colours was very exciting!

The first things that caught my eye were the highlighting powders. I LOVE highlighters, not because I want to attempt any kind of shaping or (the new trend for painting your imaginary face on as if your a Madame Tussauds wax work) contouring, but because I don't like to have a matte face. I don't use normal powder, I use highlighters all over to set my foundation and give me a dewy look. Aren't these attractive?! What a lovely shape!

I use MUA 'undress your skin' as my everyday powder and I love it, but I have been wanting something a little less pink. I ordered the golden highlighter straight away, and then ummed and ahhhed about the peach one for a while.... It's very similar to the MUA highlighter, but I decided to try it anyway.... at £3 a pop I didn't have much to loose!

I like the colour and texture of both of these very much. The peach is still pink in tone, but I think it is a tiny bit more peachy and a little bit more subtle than the MUA version. It's my new daily powder! The gold is quite intense (It'll be good for eyeshadow) and the colour is delicious. I'll swap over to this powder when my skin starts to darken over summer and I want golden brown tones rather than pink. Over all I really like these powders, I highly recommend them!

The scandalous lipstick collection consists of 5 intense colours. I went for the orange one (called 'Vice') and at £1 a pop they're a decent lipstick. Unsurprisingly they're similar to the £1 MUA lipsticks - quite creamy with a medium/high coverage that isn't too shiny. This is actually a proper orange colour. If you've been searching for a true orange then this is worth a try, you need two layers for perfect coverage and the colour is lovely!

I was really excited about the #happy lips Amazing Care collection. I like intense colours, but I don't want my lips to dry out or feel like they are covered in sand! I love coloured balms, so I thought I'd be on safe ground with these. Firstly the boxes made my heat sing because they are rose gold. I won't tell you again how much I love anything that is rose gold, but they looked lovely, and the lipstick packaging is lovely too. They look impressive with the colour through the centre and the argon oil conditioning balm as an outer layer, and only £3 each.

Lets talk about the colours. Obviously I had to try the red.... that's my bread and butter, but I wanted to be able to show you some swatches so I also got love a hug (silly name!) and love pink. I knew electric love and nude would be too pale on my dark lips, so these seemed sensible to me. The red is a good old fashioned shade, the pink is a nice fuchsia pink, and 'a hug' (see doesn't work does it?!) is a sort of coral tinted rosy pink. They're all very nice, very wearable colours. You get a good pop of colour but obviously they're not particularly intense. As you can see they go on quite glossy. I'd say they are somewhere between creamy and greasy at first, then they start to feel like a balm over time, and my lips felt nice throughout the day.

There are a few problems with these though.... I don't like the taste for one thing. I guess it's the argan oil, it just tastes a bit gross, but it's only noticeable if you really lick your lips. The main issue I have though is that the colour in the core wears down much quicker than the outer layer, and within the space of a day I was already having to apply a lot of pressure to get the colour on my lips rather than just the argan oil balm. I think I will actually have to slice off the top layer after a few days wear. I'd say that this was quite a major design flaw. I think these would be a much better product if the core was much larger and the glossy balm was just a thin layer, otherwise in the long run you'd be better just getting one of the millions of moisturising coloured balms / tints available from other brands, because you get the same kind of coverage and gloss, but you don't have to apply the wand at strange angels to get the colour on your lips!

Over all I have to say that Revolution are off to a pretty good start and I feel sure that I'll shop with them again, particularly if I can actually test things out in Superdrug (the joy!). The highlighting powders really are lovely, and you'd pay a lot more for this kind of product from other make up brands, Mac charge £22 for theirs! I'd love to see how the purple toned powder (called 'pink' lights) looks when on the skin - I avoid purple at all costs, but I think it would look amazing on darker skin-tones! Being on a budget at the moment stopped me from going overboard, but I think the eye foils and bronzers look awesome, as does the Kajal. I'd really like to try out their 'the one foundation', but I've sworn never to buy foundation online again because the shades are never right, that's something I will certainly need to test out in store.... next month maybe!

£68-£18.95 = £49.05 left to spend!