Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair Synchronised Recovery Complex II

This is a love affair that germinated about two years ago when Harper's Bazaar gave a small bottle away with I think the September or maybe October issue. I bought 2. 

They languished in my stash, or it might have been my knicker drawer, awaiting useage, and they remained there until about 3 months ago when I finally decided to try them. I had had a couple of serums to use up, and I do have a strange aversion to high end mass market type brands, I find them too fragranced, and too mainstream weirdly, we all have our foibles and mine is a deep suspicion of run of the mill brands, I don't know why, I can't explain it but from my skincare I want difference and nicheness and to my mind ANR was a bit meh.

So I applied with fairly low expectations, a bit of "bugger I have no serum, what can I use? Oh yes there is that ANR II, I may as well use it up.

What I noticed immediately was no smell, or more accurately no discernible smell, a sort of freshness maybe but nothing significant to my nose. Next nice colour, who doesn't love a bit of soft apricot first thing in the morning, oh I knew enough about ANR to know that it was okay for am application. But what impressed me the most initially was the texture, light, fluid, cooling, refreshing, with just a little bit of substance to show that it is on the skin, I didn't find it tacky, but neither did it sink into the skin without a trace. I found myself looking forward to applying this each morning, oh and maybe in the evening as well.

And what do you know after using up the little sample bottle which lasted me around 5 weeks of daily am use and some pm uses, my skin began to seem a bit brighter, a bit more even toned - now bear in mind I regularly use Sunday Riley Luna Oil which I have found to be excellent in even-toned promotion, but is pm use, or at least that is how I prefer to use. On finishing the first bottle I quickly moved onto the second bottle, and my skin continued to enjoy this product, feeling soft, looking a bit brighter and feeling calm and hydrated prior to makeup application - I missed it hugely when I finished both bottles.

So much so that I have gone on to purchase the 50mls size.

Now at around £70 for 50mls this is a considered purchase, but I am using it once sometimes twice a day, it sits happily under any moisturiser I put over the top, maintaining its cooling, hydrating properties and on hot sweaty days is sufficiently moisturising to negate the need for anything else. So actually, not a considered purchase at all but for me a necessity.

Seventeen Stay Time Foundation SPF25

I need a base which lasts a long time. On the days that I work in my job, I apply my makeup at 6.00am and I leave around 5.00pm sometimes as late as 8.00pm. I have no time to re-touch during the day so really I want to put it on and for it to last.

Having an oily skin I have run the gamut of oil free primers, powder foundations and anything to keep me matte, matte, matte, but as I have gotten older, I find that matte translates as flat on my face.

I admit that this line between matte and dried up old leather and glow and sweaty betty is gossamer thin and I am not sure that I have achieved it.

However this foundation is something I would have overlooked apart from a review by Sunday Girl and by Beaut ie which made me at least decide to try it.

So a lockable lid bottle with a pump, SPF25.

It is somewhat thick when initally pumped out.

And the half pump above spreads an alarmingly long way and is somewhat alarmingly thick in texture.

However, this does cover everything on my skin and spreads easily and looks suprisingly skin like. For me the best way to apply is use my fingers, take my time, apply to one section of my face at a time and then take a clean buffing brush and buff like billy oh to blur it all together.

I do not need to apply concealer over this and it does last the prerequisite 8+ hours for me.

If I have a small but significant minus, I do find on my skin that it does oxidise, my skin is oily, what can I say.

Lipstick Queen Oxymoron

I bought these in the SpaceNK sale, £6, six pounds - they are still available for £6, or on the John Lewis website they are £22. I bought four.

I like LQ products, they promise much and deliver much, the colours are true in that what is in the pan equates to what comes out on the applicator and onto the skin, I don't ever find that the product oxidises on my skin.

I have had a sudden resurgence of delight in cream blush in my later years, not that I was really a fan in my younger years having a tendency to blush and look flushed naturally anyway, but I now find that I need that extra oomph to look even barely alive, and I often over do it with a delightful orb of bright on each cheek which I am almost loathe to dilute out, I am also rather a fan of the rouged earlobe a la Diana Vreeland. These shades adequately achieve both, and amazingly do not look too bad on the lips.

So first up Open Secret - this to me is a light bright coral, maybe a bit of salmon pink? On my lips it looks rather pale, but there is colour and it is bright.

Honest Politician really is my shade of lips but better, a sort of grapey, browny, mauvey neutral.

Free Ride is slightly more browny to my eye, but only slightly, and maybe a tad creamier in formulation. 

Minor Crisis is a berry, a bright, clear, cheery cherry/raspberry shade.

These really are lovely, each comes boxed and in a solid package with a mirror and for £6 I don't think one can go wrong. 

Boots Essentials Fragrance Free Moisturising Cream

Now for the 2 or 3 people who read my blog regularly (and that includes me) I am a high end product sort of person, if it has a fancy name, or better still fancy packaging it is likely to catch my eye and my wallet.

So what the ecky peck is a £1.50 (yes one whole pound and 50 whole pence of currency) product in its utilitarian packaging doing in my stash?

Now you see I get my influences from all over the shop, beit magazines (although less now), online reviews, or word of mouth and this was definitely a word of mouth recommendation, but not in the way one would think....let me set the scene....

I was on a Boots visit, conscious of a clock watching husband outside, but it was a big Boots and I hadn't been in for a while. I was happily swatching various SPF50+ to see if LRP dry touch really was dry touch, and deciding that the newer Bioderma Photoderm Aquafluide was better and cheaper, when I overheard a chap asking an assistant if she could point him in the direction of Boots basic moisturiser for his wife "because she uses it to take her makeup off and it is really effective."

Now I am interested in what made me take this comment as worthy of further investigation, was it that I made a judgement on the chap? (mid fifties, very well dressed if rather harassed looking, in a affluent area of town ergo wife has access to higher end products but chooses to buy something less expensive maybe because it is more effective), or was it that I was simply curious and just wanted an excuse to try another product? Either way I purchased it for the princely sum of £1.50 for 100mls no less.

It is has a thick, creamy, light texture, there is no scent whatsoever, neither is there any oiliness. On application it has enough slip to massage into dry skin and it dissolves makeup.

It does also emulsify with the addition of water which does not look particularly truthful in the photo below but it does.

Ingredients are as follows Aqua, Paraffinum liquidum, Cetearyl alcohol, Glycerin, Glyceryl stearate, Cetyl alcohol, PEG-100 stearate, Dimethicone, PEG-20 stearate, Phenoxyethanol, Carbomer, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Tocopheryl acetate, Potassium hydroxide, Retinyl palmitate, Tetrasodium ETDA, Tocopherol

So yes it does have mineral oil in but personally I don't mind that.

Dr Paw Paw Tinted Multipurpose Balm

I bought these about a billion years ago - well probably a year ago, maybe 18 months ago, photographed them, used them, lost them and found them again in my daughter's stash, and whilst hunting around for a lightweight but effective lip and cheek tint, remembered them.

Anyway these are huge 25mils tubes which are not easily lost in the mele which is my handbag. In fact I remember the first time I came across Dr Paw Paw and it was because a beauty journalist had written that the bright packaging and the size meant that it was easy to lay her hands on it when her lips needed a slick of moisture. Incidentally then it was Lucas's Paw Paw and came in a red tube and was untinted, how times change.

The tinted version has not been around for that long (well 18 months at least) and it is rather fabulous.

I have swatched them below.

And smeared them below to show how pigmented they are.

Here is the Ultimate Red on my cheek

And the Peach Pink on my cheek which does not show up quite so well in the photo.

These are around the £7 mark from various online retailers such as Feelunique and BeautyExpert, but I have also found them in Selfridges and HN. They will last at least the whole of the summer.

BECCA Aqua Luminous Perfecting Foundation in Porcelain

A beautiful, beautifully packaged foundation. This comes in a frosted glass bottle and it really is rather ethereal with its swirls of iridescence. And it promises so very much.

Now I have been a regular repurchaser of BECCA products - I loved their Luminous Skin Colour, a feather light tint which was pared with a stick foundation for concealing, they also made a compact concealer with a split pan of heavier and lighter consistency concealers. What was so amazing was the span of skin shades, I think 33. Some shades were sub- divided into cool, warm and neutral, it was a delight......so what the hell has happened with this foundation and its total of 9 shades?

Now I know that formulations have moved on exponentially since I was first purchasing BECCA some 10 years ago (and the rest), and there is more of a forgiving, sort of wriggle room between shades but I am disappointed to say the least.

Another disappointment is the delivery system - a dropper which is millimetres narrower in diametre than the neck of the product meaning smearing and mess.

So I am disappointed on 2 fronts, shade range and delivery system. Going back to the shade range I have swatched it on my hand below 

BECCA Ultimate Coverage Complexion Creme in Porcelain on left and BECCA Aqua Luminous Perfecting Foundation in Porcelain on the right - there is to my eye about a 2 shades difference and an unwanted warmth to the Aqua Luminous.

So saying this is a really lovely foundation. I can apply 1 pump and it covers without caking and sets to negate the need for any setting powder. It lasts my usual 7 to 8 hours and does not deteriorate or break down or separate. It really does look like my own skin. I just cannot get used to the warmthness of the porcelain shade of this foundation.

I bought mine from Cult Beauty which is currently the only place in UK which carries the porcelain shade.

NIOD Superoxide Dismutase Saccharide Mist

I purchased this because it was new, no suprise there really, I like new things and am constantly searching for the one product or products for I would not want to restrict myself, which make my skin look amazing.

This is a rather unrealistic task for this product for it is to all intents and purposes a facial mist, a spray, something which one faffs about with. But you see for me this product is anything but, and I was well flabbergasted as to its immediate and lasting effect on my skin.

NIOD is a new brand just over a year old, and I have blogged about it before and there is lots of information on their own website, Caroline Hirons had a post with comment answered by the brand's inventor (for want of a better word) and Victoria Health has comprehensive information with each of the products that they sell. 

SDSM - as it intialises as, is marketed as a face and body treatment which hydrates the skin and protects against oxidation. In a nutshell, it isn't a toner, but it is to my mind, maybe a suped up toner with added benefits.

What I found on my skin post application was firstly that it does not feel like a toner on the skin. I sprayed it on, goodish spray but it does come out a bit spurty but then where is there a spray which does not spurt a bit? And for want of speed I rubbed it into my face - the texture is lovely, like a thinnish serum - it has substance.  My skin felt immediately plumped up, as if every cell had supped at a cool clear mountain stream. But what amazed me the most was how well every other product I applied, down to my base and concealer, went on so much more easily and lasted so much longer with far less breakup and cracking and general wear and tear.

The ingredients are listed below and there is information about how each one actively works to increase hydration and decrease the effects of oxidation and general inflammation on the skin on the NIOD website and the Victoria Health website.

It is £34 for 240mls and is likely to last a good time even with generous spraying. It has somewhat nudged me into trying the brand again, and at the moment all my other hydrating type sprays are taking a back seat.