Smashbox Studio Skin

Before trying this foundation from Smashbox, I was an avid Estee Lauder Double Wear fan and wore it all day, every day! It did however look really unnatural on my skin and left it feeling dry and taught. I'm always on the lookout for new long wear foundations, so had to try this one from Smashbox, priced at £27.50, it's a similar price to MAC and Estee Lauder, both of which I use foundations from.

Here's the lowdown:

• 15 hour wear
• Hydrating
• Oil free
• Matt finish
• Medium to full buildable coverage
• £27.50
• Pump dispenser

This is a shade 1.2 which matches my pale skin perfectly. The 1.1 was just a little too ghostly on me. This shade is more yellow based which I prefer on my skin tone. I'd say my skin tone is more neutral, neither yellow nor pink toned, but given the option, I think yellow toned gives me a more natural finish,

This is the foundation blended into my hand so you can see the colour match is very good.

And here is the foundation blended into my skin, finishing with a small dust of Smashbox's Halo Powder. It gives a matt finish anyway, but I like to use a powder to set my foundation. Given the daily test under different conditions, it certainly lasts on my skin a full day and doesn't rub off onto clothes. It feels natural and light weight on my skin, unlike double wear. I don't think the transfer or staying power is quite as good as double wear, but certainly for a more natural finish, I will opt for Smashbox Studio skin instead of double wear.

Laura xx

Covering Acne and Scarring Using Makeup - A Tutorial / Guide

As mentioned in previous posts, my skin has flared up a little recently and it has left me with lots of scars all over my skin. I know this is something that probably quite a few people suffer with, so I wanted to show you what products I use to cover my skin and to help get that flawless look.

In advance, I apologise for the horrible makeup-less photos of me - it's certainly not what I'd want to see!!

BEFORE makeup, after moisturising

 The Products that I use for my canvas/base

I've been using this foundation for around a week now since I first got given it. I'm usually an Estee Lauder Double Wear fan, as I love the full coverage it gives to my skin which at the moment, I'm feeling pretty fed up about : ( One thing I didn't like about Double Wear is the tight mask feeling on my skin - I was worried when I smiled my makeup might crack!!! I don't get that with Smashbox's Studio skin, it feels light on my skin, but still gives excellent coverage - see the photos below.

I will be writing up a full review very soon.

This little beauty is a new favourite in my makeup bag. It is a little on the expensive side, but comes complete with brush. It's Smashbox's Halo Hydrating Perfecting Powder and I can honestly say, I've noticed such a big difference in dry areas of my skin since using this. My skin feels a lot more hydrated and looks more hydrated. 

I would recommend this to ANYONE without oily skin. Oily skin, you need something to suck up that oil, so I'm not sure this would be for you. Normal, dry, dehydrated skin, look no further for a powder - this is your man!

This is how it looks inside. Sorry about the messiness, it's not the greatest of products in a black container and gets very powdery looking very quickly! It comes complete with the little kabuki brush which feels like a  good quality brush.

Here is the powder, it has a grating effect. You turn the top very slightly and like a cheese grater, it dispenses the product. It's very handy and great as you only dispense and use as much on the brush as you want. This amount shown here is plenty to cover my whole face.

What I also like is that is adds coverage on top of your foundation, plus that it's a mineral powder so hopefully, it won't break out my skin.

After the foundation

You can see it's covered the jaw area really well. I just use an Elf stippling brush to stipple the foundation onto my skin. I only need around 3 pumps to cover my whole face, so it's going to last for a long time.

On the higher cheek area where there's more scars, it's a little bit more difficult to cover. I'm happy with this level of coverage though, as once I've got my powder and blush on top, it should almost disappear.

 This is the other cheek where there are less marks, so it's covered well. 

 After the foundation AND the Halo powder

Here my skin has a lovely satin sort of look to it. I find the powder give my skin a boost of radiance, which isn't typically what powders do. You can see the coverage is much better here, just by dusting and buffing some of the halo powder on top of the foundation.

 And here's another close up showing the coverage. I think I had a little bit of blush on in this photo too. The marks and acne are hardly visible and I'm really happy here with the way my skin looks.

After

I'm really happy with the glow in my skin and the coverage here. To me, it looks natural and doesn't look like underneath, that I have terrible skin. I would love for my skin to naturally look this good, but it's going to take some time and maybe another bout of Roaccutane : (

Here you can see the bumps under the skin, but they're pretty well covered and I don't think they're noticable until I tip my head like this into direct light. Usually, my jaw is covered by my hair (but no, this isn't why I have acne on my jaw : ) my hair doesn't actually rub onto my jaw)

I hope that this little photo tutorial has helped someone. I know how terrible it can be having acne and scars - everyday when I look in the mirror without makeup on it makes me extremely sad. Please share this with your friends if they too suffer from acne or scarring like me.

Please comment if you found it helpful. Would you like to see more tutorials like this? I find on most blogs, people have perfect skin, so hope by doing this, I will be reaching out to people who don't have perfect skin.

Holiday time!

After spending three days in London, I'm now off to Glasgow for a long weekend. Bit of a long way to drive for a long weekend, but I'm feeling like I just need a relaxing, fun break away from Nottingham. Here's some amazing goodies I got in London to keep you going whilst I'm away... I will blog more about each product after I've had chance to try them out over the next few weeks.

Smashbox Goodies

Smashbox Full Exposure Mascara

Smashbox O-Gloss which adapts and changes to your body temperature, PH levels and moisture

Smashbox Studio Skin - Full coverage but without the drying, face mask feeling of double wear. I have just used this today and my skin doesn't feel like it's going to crack every time I move like with Doublewear.

Smashbox Photo Finish Hydrating Primer - My skin is soooo dehydrated at the moment, so I'm hoping this can inject some moisture into my skin.

Smashbox Smoke Box - GORGEOUS! Love the colours, they're very me.

Smashbox Blush in Chiffon - a lovely coral/pink shimmer blusher

Smashbox Soft Lights in Shimmer - a lovely reflective shimmery powder

Smashbox Photo Set Finishing Powder - contains only three ingredients! Helps to minimise and absorb shine throughout the day whilst smoothing over and bluring any fine lines. Feels so silky and amazing. Not sure I'm going to need to use this as my skin is dehydrated.

Smashbox Halo Hydrating Perfecting Powder in Fair. One of my FAVOURITE products because of my dehydrated skin. Has a Hydrogel technology which apparently drip feeds your skin with moisture to keep it hydrated throughout the day.

MAC Studio Finish Foundation

I've just come to like my Mac Studio Finish Foundation in NC 20. When I've previously used it, (as before hand I've used a rubbish foundation with not a lot of coverage and had to trowel it on!!) I also slapped it on thickly wasting half a bottle :-( When I thickly spreaded it onto my skin, I could see the brush marks, it didn't cover well and just sat on the top of my skin like a mask.

Thank goodness I didn't give up on using it as I now love the stuff. For some reason, only the other day, I decided my skin was looking healthier after being on my antibiotics for around a month now, so I'd use a bit less. It's not the easiest stuff to get out of the bottle and have to give it a bit of a shake out onto the back of my hand, I used a tiny bit on the end of my foundation brush and used a patting motion to blend it into my skin. Oh wow! I was so surprised, it looked so much better, even though I'd used less. It blended in, it looked natural and my skin glowed. If I needed a bit more coverage, once the first coat had been applied, I just used a tiny bit more in those areas and patted over the top. Ta da!! Lovely skin for once :-)

I'm so happy with it now I don't think I'm going to bother (for the time being), trying anything else. I will at least finish the bottle for sure.

Hope you're all having a good weekend. Today I've been feeling :-( after going out last night and having too much to drink - causes bad endo pain and every time I wonder why I bothered drinking, it wasn't even like I had a good night. Oh well, hopefully have a better day tomorrow and manage to actually do something productive like mowing the lawns and listing things on ebay!
Laura x