Marc Jacobs Lipsticks: The New Nudes

marc jacobs new nudes sheer gel lipstick review

Well these are a sight for sore eyes, aren’t they? I can’t get enough of the packaging for the Marc Jacobs New Nudes sheer gel lipsticks. It’s unbelievably cool; chic, but at the same time a bit chunky and retro. The casing is the kind of nude shade that would look equally at home moulded into a sixties plastic picnic set as it would on the catwalk, and I love the raised metallic logo and the round button at the base.

marc jacobs new nudes sheer gel lipstick review

The lid and base are magnetised, which is quite pleasing – it feels reassuringly expensive when they click into place – but the packaging is all still relatively lightweight and (can’t believe I’m about to use this word) fun.

marc jacobs moody margot

I have two shades, Anais and Moody MargotAnais, pictured above on the left, and on my face below, is the kind of warmish nude that looks polished and ladylike and it’s brilliant for those who want a nude shade but don’t like to look as though their lips are disappearing.

For those who do like to look as though their lips are disappearing (you know what I mean by that, don’t you? When the colour sort of matches your skin? Not disappearing through thinness or – er – magic) there’s Moody Margot, below.

It’s pretty pale, but somehow still quite easy to wear. Perhaps because it has a bit of a sheen and juiciness to the finish. It’s not like wearing a concealer shade, so you don’t need to ramp it up with a crazy smokey eye and false lashes and all of that jazz, but it’s light enough to give a beautiful neutral-toned look to the face.

The “gel” texture is interesting; a sleek sheen that’s almost glossy but has no tackiness and a comfortable, hydrating feel. It’s not as light and fresh as I was expecting (for some reason I had it in my head that there would be a cooling effect!) but my lips are on the dry side, so it’s actually a relief that it feels more nourishing.

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Cover FX Cream Concealer

Cream Concealer

After being seriously wowed by the Cover FX Total Cover Cream Foundation both in terms of formula and shade match, I was eager to try some of their other base products, and the next product I got was the Cover FX Cream Concealer £23. When it comes to concealer, I am not particularly loyal like I am with foundation and I chop and change my concealer quite frequently but I like my concealer that I use for covering blemishes and imperfections to have good coverage and for it to be relatively dewy so it doesn’t cling to any dry skin surrounding blemishes. The Cover FX Cream Concealer is suitable for all skin types and is described as being a full coverage liquid concealer designed to conceal imperfections for a flawless finish. I was impressed that this concealer can be used both under the eyes and for hiding discolouration, dark tones and imperfections as usually with concealer, they excel at one or the other and not both.

The Cover FX Cream Concealer is rich in emollients so that it blends into the skin effortlessly to instantly erase the appearance of under eye circles, redness, dark spots, sun damage, blemishes, moles, tattoos, birthmarks and visible signs of fatigue. The concealer is packaged within a 10ml grey plastic squeeze tube, with a fine nozzle which I really like as I can squeeze out as much or as little as I need, and it’s a lot more hygienic than a doe foot applicator especially when covering blemishes and breakouts. Just like the foundation, the Cream Concealer is divided into three shade ranges to suit pink, neutral and golden undertones. I opted for the shade P Light, as I have a strong pink undertone and it’s the palest shade within the P Category. There are twelve shades in total to choose from which is pretty impressive, so I’d imagine there’d be a shade for most skin tones including those with medium to deep skintones.

Shade wise, P Light is a pretty good match for my skintone. In the swatches above, it does look a little too dark for me but the skin on my face is a touch darker than the skin on my hands so it does match me a lot better. The coverage of the concealer is amazing.. it really is a very high coverage concealer, with these swatches being only a pin head sized amount of product, so you only need the tiniest amount as it goes such a long way. For a concealer with coverage as full as this, I was really surprised by how easy to blend it was and it wasn’t at all dry or chalky like some full coverage concealers can be. Once blended into the skin, it has a subtle dewy finish which I really like, and it manages to look natural on the skin.

I do prefer this concealer for covering blemishes and imperfections, than I do for concealing under my eyes but that’s only because I don’t need a full coverage concealer under my eyes just yet as I only have a little darkness which a light coverage concealer covers up absolutely fine. As an imperfection concealer, it’s just perfect. It covers up any blemishes or acne scarring amazingly well, and it even covers my freckles so I imagine it’d be excellent at covering up any pigmentation issues. I’ve never tried a concealer with coverage as full as this before, and somehow it doesn’t look at all cakey on my skin like I’d expect a super full coverage concealer to be – it really is an amazing concealer, and I love that it’s free from gluten, mineral oil, fragrance, parabens and talc too.

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Colors Beyond Belief!

We’ve got something beyond belief coming your way, Benebabes! Drumroll, please—on June 26th, you’ll be able to snag your fave they’re real mascara & push-up gel liner in #killercolors! We’re beyond excited for this REAL bold addition to the benefam—the ultimate “are-they-or-aren’t-they…” beauty besties in colors that make our skin & eyes pop has us certain that things are about to get real sexy, real quick.

Benefit_Insta_prodct_ColorNoFog_June15They’re real mascara is coming in beyond blue & beyond brown—shades that make any eye color pop. The blue is bright & gorgeous, but subtle enough to be wearable for everyday, and the brown—well, ladies, you’ve been asking for it for years & we’ve been listening! Benefit_Insta_prodct_TarFcBlueMascara_June15

They’re real push-up liner is swimming into stores in beyond brown, beyond blue, beyond green & beyond purple—deep, gorgeous jewel tones with a creamy, long-wearing formula that won’t smudge, budge or dry out! The original lash-hugging AccuFlex tip is alive and well in these new killer colors—’cause every Benebabe knows, it’s all about the tip 😉 These colors all work hard to highlight the whites of your eyes & give ah-mazing color payoff that doesn’t quit ’til you do. Whether you’re going for a sexy cat eye, bold, dramatic liner, or a thin, subtle look—they’re real in colors beyond belief is the ultimate new makeup bag must have!

Benefit_Insta_prodct_TarFc_June15

So, Benebabes, we’re dying to know—which one of these killer colors are you dying to try!? Tweet @BenefitBeauty with #killercolors & tell us which one you’re grabbing first!

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What’s In My Bag?

lk bennett handbag

Just to go alongside the “What’s In My Makeup Bag” post that went up earlier on this week; a snoop inside my handbag. My sister said when I took these photos – and I quote her directly – “this is the sh*ttest What’s In My Bag ever! Where’s all the makeup stuff?” But I don’t like to contrive my bag contents, and I suspect that is what happens quite a lot of the time – a carefully edited selection of beauty products and so on, that look pretty on the page and cover all of the bases. I just tend to tip my own bag upside down and see what’s going on – granted, I do often remove old pieces of tissue and cereal bar wrappers and so on, but for the most part it’s a true representation of that day’s contents.

whats in my handbag

So sorry if this really is the “sh*ttest” reveal ever – I’m getting my sister back by posting up the picture of her photobombing my still-life. Again, entirely unplanned – this should win some kind of photobombing award, I feel. Her head and arms have been perfectly framed!

And so, to the contents of my handbag. Which is the beautiful Jenna bag from LK Bennett – it also comes in white and hot pink, which would be lovely for spring! You can find it online here.

ruth crilly beauty blog

Firstly, let’s tackle all of the bumph: a five pound note, crumpled, some little hairbands in pastel colours (bottom left), my Nectar trolley token and a “Nakd” cereal bar. I eat loads of those cereal bars (well, about four a week, but that’s four more than I’d have eaten prior to being pregnant!) and I can imagine that non-pregnant they would taste quite foul – can anyone vouch for them? Like them? Hate them?

The scary dolly thing is my Marni Rose purse spray – some of your comments on this did make me laugh when I posted about it! I just love the scent, though, regardless of whether the packaging is cute or hideous – it’s a really interesting, non-girly kind of rose. Other beauty items: my Colab dry shampoo, which goes with me everywhere, and a Clinique Superbalm. There’s lots going on with Colab at the moment, all very exciting, but annoyingly you won’t see anything happen for a while because product developments take AGES. Lots of brainstorming and nit-picking (not literally) and lots of me being completely pedantic and a control freak. But if the things that come from all of this work are as brilliant as the Sheer & Invisible dry shampoo I will be a very happy lady – watch this space!

Clinique Superbalm – keep meaning to post on this. It’s just excellent, and quite a nice “dupe”for the Sisley in terms of effect and a little bit similar in texture. It just really does the job on chapped lips, I especially like it layered over their All About Lips cream, overnight. You can find it here.

louis vuitton agenda

What else, what else? Filofax, or Agenda as they say at Louis Vuitton: I bought this for myself about ten years ago, before luxury good prices were so utterly ridiculous. I’m pretty sure I paid just over a hundred pounds, and now they are about four hundred. What the heck? The refills alone cost £52 now! But it’s a ritual, buying them every January and I must say that the diary itself has lasted amazingly well – it looks brand new. Underneath the Agenda you can see my new camera, the Canon Powershot G7 X, which is brilliant – I always need a smaller camera to supplement the big, chunky, heavy Canon DSLR that I use when I’m at home. I can highly recommend the Powershot – the functions are amazing and it has a flip-up screen, too, if you’re into “vlogging” and need to see yourself… I bought mine from Amazon here.

mindful birthing nancy bardacke

The final piece of the handbag puzzle: a bit of light reading. (Ha!) Mindful Birthing by Nancy Bardacke. I won’t go too much into the whole birthing thing here (you can read my pregnancy diary entries and rambles over on my little blog The Uphill, which isn’t quite ready to see yet but I trust you’ll all be kind!) but so many people – friends, family, readers, Twitter followers – have said about Mindful Birthing and how it helped them and so I’m doing loads of reading. It’s basically about breathing and trying to stay calm and in control during birth and yes I know that loads of people will say that  “everything will go out of the window at the time” and “you have no idea what it’s like”, but I do think that we are bombarded with incredibly negative representations of birth, especially on television and in the media. And in my own immediate family and friends group, the birth stories have been overwhelmingly positive, so that’s how I’m setting my mind. There will be more discussion on this topic over on The Uphill very soon!

The post What’s In My Bag? appeared first on A Model Recommends.

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Kracie Japanese Sweets

Kracie

I’m going totally off topic here because there is so little beauty news (until my email explodes at around 9am tomorrow morning!) but my current non-beauty obsession is the Kracie Japanese Sweets kits. They’re so bonkers but a lot of fun and just, well, amusing to do. I will warn you ahead that they don’t even taste very nice (to a western tongue).

Kracie Japanese Sweets

Although the instructions come in Japanese – I had a super helper from Twitter who translated the back of the box for me (@nicintokyo) – they’re not really complicated. Once I’d understood via Nic that you just fill the empty portion of the carton with water and add the enclosed sachet of powder to

Kracie Japanese Sweets

mix up a paste, I was off. Everything is included, from little spoons and icing bags to sprinkles and wafer cases (if needed). And, as you can see, there are plenty of diagrams to follow.

Kracie Japanese Sweets

I started off with the ice cream one, and then had a very enthusiastic over-ordering session so now I have boxes and boxes of Kracie Japanese Sweets kits!

Kracie Japanese Sweets

This is the inside of the Pizza kit – I wouldn’t start with this one because it’s quite complicated; I’m not looking forward to working this one out! If you do fancy trying Kracie Japanese Sweets, I’d start with the ice-cream set because it’s really easy and very, very cute.

The taste, by the way, is a bit sweet wallpaper paste. I know it’s probably a soy paste of some kind and it’s fairly safe to say that you can throw away the healthy-eating book on these, but it’s interesting to try, at least, and not exactly horrible.

The kits aren’t expensive, starting at a couple of quid, but mine took a long time to arrive in the post – about three weeks. If you want to try the ice-cream set, it’s HERE. Otherwise, just key in Kracie onto amazon.co.uk and everything available pops up.

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