Bobbi Brown foundation sticks - Review

Highlighting and contouring has become so, so popular over the past few years, now everyone wants that gorgeous Kim K sculpted look. And why not?! I personally love the contoured look. There are so many different products out there that you can use to achieve this kind of look, but today I'm going to talk about my favourite. The Bobbi Brown Foundation Stick.  

Bobbi Brown Foundation Sticks - £29.00 each 

So, by the name of the product you can probably guess that this is a foundation in stick form. The foundation sticks have what I would describe as a cream to powder finish, which makes them feel super lightweight on the skin, but still give a really good coverage. This product is really great for all skin types; it will stay on all day as it has AMAZING lasting power, but won't dry out your skin at all. It's just the perfect in between. Now, this product can be used on it's own as a foundation, however I like to use this product over the top of foundation as a contour and highlight base (meaning I will apply powder contour and highlighting products over the top of them once the foundations have been set). It is completely up to you how you use this product, it is so versatile there really is no "proper" way to use it. So I'm going to be showing you how you can achieve a subtle contoured and highlighted effect using the BB Foundation Sticks.

The highlight colour that I use is called 1 Warm Ivory. This colour is a really good highlighting colour for me, but they have a wide range of colours on the website that you can choose from, this shade won't necessarily work for everyone!

The contour colour that I use is called 6.5 Warm Almond, which I think is a really good contour shade for a variety of skin tones. It's is quite a warm toned brown, which usually I would stay away from when contouring, but when used as a contour base product, it works really well and adds a little more of a bronzed look to the finished makeup, (which I love!)

So the first thing that I like to do is apply a base coat of foundation to even out my skin tone, for this look I used the Revlon Colourstay foundation in 330 Natural Tan. I also concealed a little underneath my eyes with the Origins Plantscription Anti-Aging concealer in 01 Light. (Amazing concealer, might have to do a review!)

Once I had applied those two products and blended everything out, I then applied my BB stick in Warm Ivory to the highest parts of my face. This includes: the cheekbones, the bridge of the nose, centre of the forehead, above the tail of the brow, cupids bow, lower cheeks and chin. The reason you apply the highlight colour to these areas is because these are the areas we want to appear more prominent. Applying the colour under the eye aswell as on the cheekbones will make your eyes appear brighter and is more flattering.

The next thing to do is apply the contour colour to the following parts of the face: the temples, in the hollows of the cheeks (under cheekbones), along the jaw line, down the sides of the nose, along the hair line and underneath the lower lip. Applying this colour to these areas will intensify the natural shadows of the face, resulting in it appearing more structured and chiseled. 

You can apply less or more of each product depending on how intense you want the look to be; I kept mine pretty subtle. 

Once you have all of the contour and highlight colour placed in the areas you want, you can start to blend them out. I like to use a small stippling brush to do this as I think it works really well in ensuring that the product is blended seamlessly. The brush that I use is the Zoeva Petite Stippling 122 brush, but really you can use any brush that you feel comfortable with. A blending sponge would work just as well, or you could even use your fingers if you prefer!

I like to blend all of my highlight colour first and then move on the the contour colour, because then you are making sure that you get no dark colour in the areas that you want to keep nice and bright. 

Once everything is blended, you can go on to complete the rest of your makeup. For this look I just went for a simple winged liner and nude lip. 

So, the point of this post was really to talk about the BB foundation sticks and how I like to use them, so I kept the look pretty subtle. However, contouring and highlighting can completely transform your face and can be done a lot heavier than how I've shown it here (E.G Kim K). If you want to see a full on contour and highlight routine then just let me know in the comments!! 

I hope you found this post helpful and maybe learnt something new! If you have any questions be sure to leave them in the comments, I am more than happy to answer them for you!

Speak to you soon :-)

Love H ♥

My favourite nude lip products of the moment

As much as I love to experiment with colour, nudes will always be my favourite lip colours. I don't usually go for pinky toned nudes for myself, I'm much more of a peachy brown toned nude girl. So here's a look into my favourite 6 nude lip products of the moment. I hope you enjoy!!!!

My first favourite is actually the most rescent addition to my collection. It's the L'oreal natural blondes lipstick in 235 Nude. 

It's a much darker nude than I would usually go for, but I'm really liking the sophisticated look of this product at the moment. This product has a super intense fragrance so if you don't like fragranced lipsticks then this isn't for you, but it's not a horrible smell. 

In terms of colour payoff and pigmentation I would give this product an 8/10. It's really pigmented and creamy but it's not like WOAH THAT'S PIGMENTED. You know? Haha. I really love the formula of this product and am excited to try out more from the line. 

My second favourite is probably my favourite of them all and is the one I reach for the most! I think everybody and their dog has raved about this product, and ima rave some more. This is the Rimmel London Apocalips Lip Lacquer in Nude Eclipse. 

I love this product with all my heart. The colour is my absolute perfect nude shade for starters! 

And secondly I love the matte formula of this product. It looks so good on the lips and stays put for soooo long. It doesn't have the best smell in the world but I can get over that. It's just the best product to throw on effortlessly and still look great. I highly recommend this product and all the other colours from the Apocalips line. 

My next favourite is the Revlon Colourburst lipgloss in Bellini. 

I really like this peachy toned gloss, it gives a really nice natural sheen to the lips and had pretty good colour payoff. I find myself reaching for this gloss a lot on hot days when I just want to look effortless and glowy. 

My next nude is MAC's Creme D'Nude lipstick. 

I really, really love the colour of this product, and the smell and the formula and the pigmentation and well, everything. Hoooowever, it has a really thick and creamy consistency so you have to be really careful that you don't apply too much, or it can look really awful! I tend to just pat the product onto my lips with my finger to ensure I don't over do it. Other than that, I love this lipstick!!! 

My next favourite is YSL's Sheer Candy lipstick in Coco Givrée. 

I have already done a review on this product so if you want hear what I think about this lipstick (I LOVE IT), then go check out that blog post. 

My final favourite nude lip product is the NYX Mega Shine Lipgloss in Sugar pie. 

I cannot say enough good things about this product. I love everything about it and the smell is AMAZING. It smells so good guys I can't even tell you. 

This product is another one that's just so effortless. It doesn't have the most amazing staying power but I don't mind applying it again as I love the taste haha. Weirdo. Anyway, I really recommend this product, it's my favourite colour from the mega shine line, I haven't loved any other one as much as I love this one and I've bought a few!! 10/10 in my opinion! 

I hope you guys have enjoyed reading this post and I have maybe given you an excuse to go out and grab a new nude lip product ;) 

Thanks so much for reading, 

Love H ♥

Soft purple smokey eye - Day to night transformation

So I thought I'd quickly share with you this purple smokey look that I did on myself today, because I want to show you how you can completely transform your look to change it from a day look to a sultry night look, with one simple step... Changing up the lip colour. 

The first lip colour I paired with this look was a nude. You can see from the top two pictures that the eyes look soft and summery and perfect for day time when paired with a nude. The bottom two pictures show the eyes paired with a deep purple lip colour, which as you can see, instantly vamps up the look and completely changes it into a sultry night time look. 

My change in lip colour for this look was quite dramatic because I wanted to show you clearly how different it can make the look appear, however this would work with just a subtle change, for example swapping a light day time orangey red for a deep, burgundy red for night time. 

This has got to be the oldest trick in the book for a simple way to change up your makeup quickly, however I just wanted to share with you how good this tip is and show you visually what a difference just changing the lip colour can make. 

I hope that this has been helpful and maybe you learnt something new. 

Love H ♥