Lip care - lip balms

I have very dry lips. They were always a bit sensitive, but since I moved to London they became much drier. The list of products I have tried along the years is quite big, from pure coconut oil and cocoa butter to all kinds of moisturising lipsticks and lip balms. Some work, some are just a waste of time and money.

Coconut oil is very good, but it's also so light that has to be reapplied all the time. The same with natural lip balms made with vegetable oils. Once I tried one made of olive oil, beeswax, and shea butter. It was very nice, had a beautiful scent of vanilla, but as with the coconut oil, it didn't last more than half an hour on my lips.

I have found good products here in England. Some of the best are more expensive, but there are very good ones that will do the job without emptying your wallet.

If you want to indulge yourself, here are some of the products that are usually more expensive:

Nuxe - Reve de Miel 
It's different from all the lip balms I've ever tried. It has a citrus scent and a very strange, thick consistency. It's a good night treatment, and the best to use under matte lipsticks; just remember to take off the excess with a paper tissue before applying the lipstick.

Rodial - Glam Balm 
Very soothing lip balm, it smells like roses and it's very hydrating. Good to use during the day, but has to be reapplied often. Not so good for night time.

Balance Me - Rose Otto Intensive Lip Salve 
I was impressed by this product the first time I tried it. My lips were instantly soft, silky and moisturised. It smells strongly like flowers/herbs, which was fine at first but started bothering me after two or three days. Good option if you don't mind its scent.

But if you prefer to spend your money in other things, there are good and cheap options out there:

Nivea - Hydro Care Lip Balm
It's one of the best for the price. Moisturises, it's not sticky, lasts on the lips and it has SPF 15, that is always a bonus. I've tried Blistex, Carmex and Vaseline, and I still think Hydro Care is more effective.

Palmer's - Cocoa Butter
I always cary one of these in my bag. As good as Nivea's Hydro Care, this one is creamy and rich, and would be my choice for no lipstick days. Very moisturising, smells like chocolate, and also has SPF 15.

Affordable option for a night time treatment:

Bepanthen
I've been using it for years and never found anything better. It doesn't smell good, doesn't taste good, doesn't come in a fancy packaging, but it's absolutely amazing. I use it every single night, last thing before I go to bed, and it works wonders.

Brushes or fingers?

Mary Greenwell is a renowned make up artist who has made up a huge number of famous women, among them Cindy Crawford, Princess Diana, Keira Knightley and Cate Blanchett. She trained two of the most important make up artists today, Lisa Eldridge and Charlotte Tilbury.

She works mostly with her fingers and the results are always amazing. In a video I watched once she said she doesn't mind other people using brushes, but she doesn't like to work with brushes and sponges because she finds them dirty and a waste of product and time.

Every time I go to a make up counter looking for foundation I ask the make up artists there what's the best way to apply it. Sometimes they say fingers, sometimes they say brushes. Once I went to an YSL counter interested in the Forever Youth Liberator Foundation and as always asked about the best way to put it on. The make up artist said I should definitely use a brush, never fingers - that could transfer bacteria to my face.

Most make up artists I know of use brushes, Bobbi Brown, Pat McGrath, Rae Morris and even Lisa Eldridge, who has assisted Mary Greenwell. It's a very personal choice, and what works for one person might not work for another. Of course brushes can be dirty as well as fingers if you don't clean them properly.

I understand using less brushes can be more practical and save time and money, as good brushes might be very expensive, but personally, I prefer brushes. I think they are more precise and deliver better results than fingers. If I'm in a hurry, I will use my fingers to apply foundation, concealer, cream blusher and cream eye shadow, leaving only finishing powder to be applied with a brush, but if I can I will take my time and pamper myself with a lot of beautiful and fluffy brushes.

My Favourite Products for Eyebrows

It was just a few weeks ago that I started having fun with my eyebrows. Before that the focus would be my eyes, lips or base, and the eyebrows would always be the last part of my make up routine. If I had time.

This changed when I was reading a makeup book and I noticed that the pictures I liked the most were the ones where the models had beautiful, defined eyebrows. Everything in the face looks tidier when the eyebrows are done right. Not too dark, not too defined, but right.

There are many ways to make up your brows and each person has their favourite products. I have tried clear mascara, eye shadow, Benefit's Browzings, MAC's eye brow pencil, and finally, the best makeup for eyebrows I tried so far - By Terry's eyebrow mascara. Absolutely perfect for my eyebrows. It gives me exactly what I was looking for: defined, natural looking brows with a minimum effort. In my case, as my brows have a good shape but the hair is too light, I use only the mascara, but if you have sparse hair in your brows, the use of a pencil might also be necessary. Another way to use only the mascara would be to put a bit more pressure on the wand when you are applying the product. This is what the make up artist did to my eyebrows when I was testing the product. It gave me very beautiful, bold eyebrows. Too much for me, but works for someone who likes them Cara Delevingne's style.

If I'm in a hurry, I use clear mascara only, to tidy up the hair and keep everything in place. Better than nothing.

I learned how to fill in eyebrows with eyeshadow, and it's a good way to do it, but I always end up choosing one of the other products. The trick here is to start from the highest point of the brows, where you'll deposit more product.
The colours I like the most for eyebrows are MAC Omega and Concrete, applied with an angled brush and then using a lash brush to finish.

Some of the best eyebrow pencils, in my opinion: MAC's Fling and Lingering. I like to use both colours, a bit of Fling and then Lingering where necessary. Excellent for beginners.

Benefit's Browzings is another great product. Apply the coloured wax first with the angled brush and set it with the powder using what they call the blending brush.

And finally my current favourite product: By Terry eyebrow mascara. I use the colour nº4 - Dark Brown. The most import advice about this product is to always clean the excess of product from the wand before you apply it. I put it on with a very light hand, use a lash brush or a clean wand to remove any clump whilst it's still wet, and then forget about it once it's dry.

Liz Earl - Cleanse & Polish

Everybody knows Liz Earl Cleanse & Polish is a very good cleanser/make up remover, in fact I bought it after reading many reviews talking about how good it is.
It's a very thick cream (the thickest I've ever tried) and it smells very nice and fresh. One pump is enough for my whole face.

When I first used it, I didn't read the instructions on the back of the packaging and the result was not good. So, I think one of the most important tips about this product is to READ THE INSTRUCTIONS. It says you have to apply it on your DRY face massaging gently,  then using a damp muslin cloth (that is sold separately) rinse it off and then splash your face with cool water. Instead of the muslin cloth I use big cotton pads and it works quite well. I might buy the muslin cloth one of these days, just to see if it will work better.  It says you should use hand-hot water and it's what I do.

Following all the instructions it works pretty well to remove all kinds of make up, even the waterproof ones, it's very gentle to the skin and as I said before smells nice.
I don't like to use it to remove make up from my eyes because I think it's too thick for that and it feels uncomfortable and messy, but it does remove waterproof mascara and doesn't sting.

It's not my favourite make up remover, but I like to use it when I'm not in a hurry or when my skin is more sensitive than usual and I want something very nice and gentle on it. It has rosemary and chamomile extracts, cocoa butter, beeswax and eucalyptus essential oil.

Organising my make up - Lipsticks

If you, like me, have a lot of lipsticks, you know that most of the time just looking at the packaging you cannot say which colour they are. Unless you keep your lipsticks upside down or always in the same place and memorise where they are it's impossible to know which is which.
So after watching one of Lisa Eldridge's videos about lipstick palettes (this one) I decided to try and make my own lipstick palette.

Unfortunately I couldn't find the Japonesque palette she shows in the video (the foundation one, with 28 wells), that looks perfect for lipsticks. I found this one instead:

It is Japonesque but it has 14 big wells on the left side and 21 smaller ones on the right. I used the left side for my favourite lipsticks and the left for the ones I don't wear very often.  I wrote the names of the lipsticks on labels and stuck them on both sides of the divider:

Then with a knife I cut half of my lipsticks and just pressed them in the wells with a spatula.

And that's all you have to do. It's a bit messy and requires some patience but it's totally worth the trouble. Now I have all my lipsticks in one place, I can choose the shades easily and I still have half the tube to carry in my bag when I go out.

Organising my make up - Eyeshadows

A good way to organise your make up is to put them in groups, and palettes make everything easier.
A few days ago I decided to depot my individual MAC eyeshadows and put them together in my big palettes.

If you google 'how to depot MAC eyeshadows', there'll be lots and lots of websites and blogs showing different ways of doing it. You just have to choose the method that is easier for you.
I chose this one:

http://www.wikihow.com/Depot-MAC-Eyeshadow

Here are some pictures showing the process and explaining very briefly what I did.

You will need:
A knife
A pair of scissors
Magnetic tape (that you can find in hardware stores)
Labels
A flat iron
Parchment paper or aluminium foil

This is what the magnetic tape looks like:

The first thing you have to do is to take out the plastic insert from the pot like this:

The plastic inserts look like this underneath:

The next step is to get a piece of parchment paper or aluminium foil (it's probably better to use parchment paper, but as I didn't have it, I had to use the aluminium foil - that works anyway) and cover the bottom part of your flat iron like this:

Turn on the flat iron and place the plastic insert on top of the aluminium foil. To know when it's time to take out the metal pan from the plastic insert you'll have to keep checking the bottom of it. When the plastic is slightly melted it's a sign that the glue inside the insert is melted too. It should look like this:

You have to be very careful because the pan will be hot. Hold the plastic insert and turn it upside down. Use the tip of a knife to pull out the pan from the insert. I suggest you place another piece of parchment paper on top of a kitchen counter and do it there.

There will be melting glue on the back of the pan. Wait until you can touch the pan without burning your fingers and stick the magnetic tape (that you have cut and prepared beforehand) on the back of it.

Stick the label on the magnetic tape. The end result is this:

It's not perfect but it doesn't matter because no one will see it, only you, and only if you need to look at the name of the eyeshadow. 

Foundations

There's something special about foundations. I've learned a few things about them in the last two years, especially during the make-up courses I took, but there's always more to learn.

I did a lot of research before I bought my first foundation, read lots and lots of reviews, until I finally went to a MAC counter to buy it. Even then I wasn't sure what I wanted, but I knew what I didn't want. I didn't want something heavy, that would make me look like I was wearing a mask.

So my first foundation was Face and Body from MAC.  It was exactly what I wanted, very light and sheer, easy to apply and looked very natural on my skin.
Little did I know but that was just the beginning of a long and exciting journey in search for the perfect foundation.

You would think that once you buy a foundation that makes your skin look great it would be the end of it. Wrong. It's such a thrill every time I try a new one. If you are not interested in make up you will never understand it.

I have a few foundations:

MAC - Face and Body
MAC - Studio Fix Fluid

MAC - Studio Fix Powder
Chanel - Vitalumiere Aqua
Bourjois - Healthy Mix Serum
Bourjois - Healthy Mix
Bourjois - 123 Perfect
Giorgio Armani - Maestro
Maybelline - Fit Me

My favourite at the moment is Maestro from Giorgio Armani. It's the best foundation I've ever tried, and as long as you moisturise your skin very well before applying the product, it will give you a really beautiful finish, so light it doesn't seem you are wearing foundation.

I'm thinking about taking some pictures wearing each one of the foundations I've got with pros and cons of each one. I think it would be useful for someone who's looking for a foundation and doesn't know yet which one to buy and useful for myself to take my time analysing each one of them.
Also, I've got many samples from different brands and I'll start testing them soon. Who knows, maybe there's something even better than my beloved Maestro...