REVIEW: LOOK BEAUTY MAKEUP: FOUNDATION & PRIMER

Look Beauty Airbrush Base £12

Look Beauty Perk Me Up Primer £12

Hello! Today I'm reviewing a couple of things from the Look Beauty range found in Superdrug. I shall begin with the foundation or 'Airbrush Base' as they have named it. I'm not keen on this one, especially for the £12 price tag, which is at the heftier end of drugstore/highstreet foundations. Luckily for me I made these purchases when they were in a half price sale so only paid £6. I hadn't used this one for a while as I've been loyal to my Rimmel Wake Me Up foundation, but this morning I used both the primer and foundation together. The foundation didn't give me a satisfactory coverage for the current state of my skin, I've got a bit of redness on my cheeks and this didn't help to hide it and didn't give the coverage I've gotten used to lately overall for my face. The colour range isn't the best, I think there is only 4/5 shades but for me the light one matches quite well, so that is one redeeming feature! On it's own this foundation is quite matte but teamed with the primer beforehand gives a more dewy effect, although I wasn't too keen as it looked too shiny and felt a bit tacky in places. 

The primer I actually quite like, usually I'm not too fussed by primers and only own one other from MUA as I feel they all do pretty much the same job no matter what you spend. This 'Perk Me Up' while coming in a cheaper plastic packaging as opposed to the glass foundation bottle is rather nice. It gives you a similar effect as Rimmel Wake Me Up but without the shimmery trait. Although slightly scarily pink-looking it blends in really naturally and is nice to apply foundation over the top of. Overall, I wouldn't purchase either again, especially at full price, because I just think my money could be better spent elsewhere. 

Have you tried these, or any other, Look Beauty products? What is your verdict? ...I think the blushers look quite nice...

REVIEW: GOOD THINGS FACE THE DAY MOISTURISER

Good Things Face the Day SPF15 Moisturiser £7.99 

I have been using this moisturiser for a while and have been really loving it. First off, it smells amazing, so fruity but not overpowering, just really delicious! The smell lasts quite well too. The main reason that I love this moisturiser though is because of how well it does its job. I find it really difficult to describe what this moisturiser is like, but I will try my best! My skin, while it doesn't look too dry most of the time, does love to just suck up moisture so that usually I would put a moisturiser on and 10 seconds later my skin would feel as dry as it did before I put moisturiser on. My skin is greedy for moisture! However, when I rub this moisturiser into my skin it goes quite wet, it is a fairly liquid-y solution, but then absorbs really quickly. At this point any other moisturiser would cease to be on my skin and I'd feel dry again but this one sort of retains itself on the skin so that it feels dewy but not greasy and really lovely and soft. When you rub it in, it goes from thin and easy to rub in quickly to feeling thicker and almost glue-like (but not gross!) as it absorbs but retains on the skin. That is the best way I can describe it! Basically, it is a really good one if you have dry skin, it is really nice under my make up and doesn't leave me looking or feeling oily or greasy. I will definitely repurchase this one as it is the best one I have found in years to suit my skin and the price tag isn't too bad at all! I have also been using the Good Things Fresh Start Creamy Cleanser and will be doing a review of that soon. 

Let me know if this is one you have tried and if you liked it and what other moisturisers I should try based on this glowing review (pun intended)!

REVIEW: TOPSHOP CREAM BLUSH

Topshop Cream Blush £6

I had been after a cream blush for ages and for some reason I just couldn't find any! I got this Topshop one because I had heard good things about their cream blushers. Of course since I bought this they have been popping up absolutely everywhere, and now I want to try the Bourjois ones so if you have tried those let me know what you think of them in the comments! Back to the Topshop one now, though! I am in two minds about this actually, as on the one hand it is a lovely colour and a nice consistency/formula (whatever you want to call it) but on the other hand it is VERY pigmented, which has made blending it in a struggle. Now I think that problem is only down to it being such a bright colour so it will always take a lot of blending to achieve a natural finish on the skin, but also I think a cram blush brush would make such a big difference, not particularly for the blush itself but in terms of controlling the colour. If you got this in one of the other colour such as this 'Rose' one it would probably be fine to blend with fingers. Overall I like it and would like to try the Rose shade because I think that looks like such a pretty colour!

Let me know what you think of this blusher or cream blushers in general in the comments (:

REVIEW: e.l.f 32pc EYESHADOW PALETTE IN 'BRIGHTS'

e.l.f 32pc Eyeshadow Palette £9 £5

The top strip of browns & golds is my go-to for everyday make up.

These grey & black ones are grey for the top lash line when you don't fancy eyeliner & I use the lighter brown to fill in eyebrows.

3 gorgeous colours on their own or blended together.

The first one to hit pan! My favourite for base all over lid colour, day or night. 

I bought this a while ago, maybe a month and a half ago, because I had a very limited eyeshadow collection that only had brown/gold colours. I wanted something with a variety of colours that wouldn't be for everyday but so that I always had the option of a quirky colour, should I need it. This palette definitely serves that purpose! While it does have a lot of great everyday colours, there are some vibrant ones for more special occasions. A lot of them are shimmery, but there are a few matte ones too, I'm not particularly more into one or the other, I tend to go through stages of loving matte eyeshadow or shimmery, currently I'm loving shimmer. The pigmentation of these shadows are really good, meaning you don't need loads of it, which is good because they are quite small. e.l.f also do this palette in 2 other colour sets, one being 'Natural' which looks really nice but they didn't have in stock when I bought mine. The only one left in stock now is 'Everyday', which isn't surprising when looking at the bargain price of just £5 reduced from £9. I paid £5 for mine and it is totally worth it and great value for money, although I don't know whether I would have bought it for £9. It is a decent size, I chuck it into my Zara Office City Bag when I'm going to stay at my boyfriend's house and it has never broken on the outside or inside. It comes with a double ended sponge applicator, which I haven't used because I just don't like them, even before I had brushes for eyeshadow I used to prefer to use a clean finger to a sponge applicator! I would recommend these palettes, assuming they are all the same quality and would buy other e.l.f eyeshadows in the hope that they are similar to these. Definitely one of the best e.l.f products I have bought and I have bought quite a few, because it is so cheap I tend to buy things from them to try out before buying similar products from more expensive brands to see if I would use it often enough/ if I like it! 

I hope this was helpful and I have been thinking of making a video about my best & worst e.l.f products as I have found that I either really love or hate their products, it can be quite hit and miss! Let me know if you would like to see that sometime in the next few weeks! 

REVIEW: REAL TECHNIQUES BRUSHES

Real Techniques Expert Face Brush £9.99

Real Techniques Lash and Brow Groomer £7.99

As I have recently started using (liquid) foundation again, I decided I wanted to try a proper brush for application rather than my fingers to see if it made any difference. Well, it does! I had tried applying foundation with a brush I already had but it was a rubbish brush and probably not right for foundation (or anything, I hate it!) but this expert face brush from Real Techniques impressed me more than I ever though possible. I always thought why buy a brush for something I can do with my hands? but I was wrong. First thoughts in the shop when I picked it up were that it was a bit expensive, similarly priced to the No. 7 range of brushes, and I was tempted to go for one of the sets that would be cheaper in general because of the amount you get, but in the end I thought I would go for exactly the brush I had been after and now I just want to buy them all! It does a really nice job of buffing in foundation and achieving a flawless effect, I also use it to buff in concealer under my eyes as I find I can never blend it well enough with my finger (next on my list - a concealer brush!). It is super soft and really well designed, I'm pretty certain that I saw in a video Sam Chapman (who designs the brushes) said they are cut by hand for precise results. If you have been wondering about foundation brushes and if they are worth the hype or money, my answer, as someone previously skeptical about them, is to get one! I haven't tried many brush ranges and don't think I'll be buying from any others in the near future, I use eco tools eye brushes but now want more Real Techniques brushes instead. The only other one I'd like to try at the moment is a MAC eyeshadow blending brush, but I'm not planning on splashing out that much for a brush just yet. 

I also got the Real Techniques lash and brow groomer as I usually get plastic comb ones, which I go through SO quickly because I have super long eyelashes and Cara Delevigne-esque brows, both of which take a fair bit of taming and neatening! I was hunting for a metal instead of plastic eyelash comb in the hope that it will last me longer and as I was getting my expert face brush I saw they had a metal comb and grabbed it quickly because it was the last one! At first I was skeptical about the eyebrow brush part because the bristles looked a bit cheap and as if they wouldn't work very well, but from the first brush over my brows it has been the best one I've ever used - and I've used a lot of these! 

So I woud definitely recommend Real Techniques brushes so far, I want to get a new blusher brush, concealer brush and eyeshadow brushes so will review those when I have used them! 

Which is your favourite brand of brushes? Have you tried Real Techniques and if so, which is your go to?

REVIEW: ELEMIS PRO-RADIANCE CREAM CLEANSER

Elemis Pro-Radiance Cream Cleanser £29

So I have been trying out different cleansers lately, I started with the Soap & Glory The Fab Pore hot cloth cleanser and absolutely loved that and thought £10 was ok because I liked it so much but steep because I got through it quite fast, although they do supply a muslin cloth. I just love the fresh, super clean feeling of my skin after using cleanser, and the Soap & Glory one was exactly that. The Elemis one doesn't have that same freshness because it is more creamy and doesn't really have a scent but it leaves my skin feeling clean. Now, the price, £29 is very expensive for a cleanser for me (student here!) and I would not buy this myself (it was a gift) knowing that the Soap & Glory one does the same job better, in my opinion, and cheaper (although this product has 50ml more). So from my Soap & Glory starting point, moving upwards isn't necessarily better and I would re-purchase Soap & Glory over Elemis. My favourite thing about this product, that is better than the Soap & Glory, is actually the packaging because it is so much easier, cleaner and more efficient being a pump rather than having to squeeze from a tube yourself, the only annoying thing is that any cleanser that gets left in the tip of the pump goes hard so you need to wipe it away. 

Let me know if this review was helpful and what cleanser you love! I am about to start using a new cleanser, the Good Things Fresh Start Creamy Cleanser which I actually have high hopes for because I have just started using the accompanying moisturiser and am in love with it! Reviews to follow...