Younique 2017

Hello,

Like a lot of people on social media, I tried Younique makeup last year. Someone in my family sells the make up and I guess eventually wore me down to trying a product. I don’t buy new things very often, whether that be clothes, make up, shoes, bags etc.; so at the beginning of the year I still had makeup from a few years ago (which can’t be good for you surely). So I started replacing makeup.

I had seen a lot of liquid lipsticks advertised and found myself rather interested in trying one. I am very dry in general, so trying a matte lipstick was not the best idea shall we say.. Wanting to replace my red lippy and seeing the Younique liquid lipstick on sale, I chose a shade I thought was in between pink and red. However, when it arrived it was a bright red! It is not a colour that you
could wear bare faced and I struggle to wear red lipstick because I have yellow teeth. To be honest I gave the liquid lipstick to my sister who can wear red lipstick.

I also tried the lip Bon Bons though. The one I ordered was in the shade Red Velvet Cake, this is a purple shade lip balm. It happens to match my natural lip colour and looks really lovely on, providing a texture and colour half way to a lipstick. I’m not sure if it keeps my lips hydrated because I struggle with most lip products that claim to keep your lips hydrated (including ones like Vaseline). If you’re interested, the best lip balm I have come across is REN’s.

I had won two raffles on my family member’s page. One of the products was the mineral eyeshadow pigment in I-can’t-remember-what-shade but it was a matte mid brown. I’ve only tried it once as an all over colour and it was quite nice, a shade that seemed to suit me. The next raffle win was also an eyeshadow pigment, this time I ordered a light brown.

I ordered a cream shadow in coral and a peach coral lipstick, hoping that they would be nice summer colours. I had an old coral lipstick by Avon and have chucked it out now, so although the new lipstick will be more of a peach colour, I hope it will be a good replacement shade. The lipstick is more coral than Avon’s pink-y coral.

Edit: I changed the tense of this post to reflect me actually posting the draft a year after it was written…

Amy xx

Estee Lauder Double Wear Nude Foundation

I have fairly recently purchased a new foundation by Estee Lauder. I was bought the Double Wear foundation for my birthday the year before last I think it was, the shade was Shell. I always thought that I have very pale skin, so as their lightest shade I figured I would be ok and I assume my boyfriend thought the same as he bought it for me. I found the shade to be too pale, particularly outside of winter, and the texture wasn’t a perfect fit for my skin type. My skin is mostly dry, with very dry spots at certain places. This is the third foundation I’ve ever owned and tried, so I made adjustments and figured that when wearing the foundation I would have to use a heavy moisturiser to reduce any texture on my face. The Estee Lauder lady at the Debenhams counter advised a cream moisturiser, then another advised I use the serum (to which my boyfriend who was surprisingly with me at the time, foolishly bought! It’s rather expensive). So I apply the serum, then a moisturiser before applying the Double Wear foundation.

At another Debenhams Estee Lauder counter several months ago whilst shopping with my Nan, I spoke with another representative about matching to my skin tone and I also tried out some of their lighter foundations. With my Nan also advising on the correct colour foundation (to which I have now tanned), I picked the Double Wear Nude. It is a cushion stick, whereby you rotate the bottle and it dispenses the foundation onto the cushion sponge and you use that to apply and blend. I have to say I am very impressed with this one! Just a note that when editing this draft, there is now a Double Wear Nude Foundation that is not in the cushion stick bottle.

As it is a lighter style of foundation, the texture suits my dry face (no need to heavily moisturise beforehand!) and it gives a very natural finish which I prefer (I love my freckles). I only ever wear makeup for a more special event than everyday, say an important meeting at work or a night out; but I keep feeling the urge to just improve my face a bit. This is the struggle I have with makeup that I have mentioned before. I get scared that if I wear it regularly, I will become unsatisfied with how I look naturally; something I have noticed with a lot of girls that do wear makeup regularly, they no longer feel comfortable in their own skin. Plus I can be rather lazy and low maintenance.

This draft was written about 8 months ago, since then the cushion has half come off which a lot of customers complain about. I have switched to using a foundation brush and I thought the foundation still looked ok. My boyfriend tells me the finish doesn’t have as nice a texture so I am considering getting a beauty blender. The issue I have with them though is that the recommendation is to wet it with water before patting the foundation on, I was under the impression that water generally means the possibility of bacteria to grow?

Every time that I try to revert back to the original foundation bought for me, or the slightly darker tester shade, I am always told that I look very pale. The problem that I have is that my face is naturally darker than my neck and body, I assume due to actual exposure to the sun. Plus my freckles are orange-y, a lot darker than my natural skin tone.

Here is a photo of my makeup and brush:

Another add is that I have recently started to use the Estee Lauder foundation brush, prior to that I used the A11 Dirty Works foundation brush. I was bought the Estee Lauder one so thought I had better start using that one, otherwise the Dirty Works one worked fine.

See ya!
x Amy x