Category Archives: beauty look

There are two ways of looking at Guerlain’s “Terracotta Joli Teint Healthy Glow Powder Duo” (longest product name in the world, and breathe): either it’s a finishing powder that you sweep over your skin to warm it up and add that final layer of faked “rude health”, or – if you have particularly fair skin – it’s the perfect subtle bronzer for all-year-round bronzing. On me, with my fair-medium skintone, the Joli Teint powder works in much the same way that Chanel’s Les Beiges does: the effect is almost imperceptible, at first, but then after a few goes with the powder brush there’s a noticeable change in tone and glow. It’s not shimmer, it’s not colour, it’s just…a kind of healthiness.

Many people will see these types of powders as being rather pointless; they either want to bronze themselves or not. They want to finish with a powder that will keep shine away, or not. If they want to add a subtle hint of blush then they’ll do so, and they’ll do it with their blusher, thank you ever so much. Something that’s so subtle you can hardly tell that it’s there is many people’s idea of a total waste of time. However, I will say that I use my Chanel Les Beiges powder on an almost daily basis and it does have an effect: just one that you can’t quite put your finger on.

Chanel Les Beiges video review…

The Guerlain Terracotta Joli Teint Powder Duo is very similar, but with an added crescent of pinky powder to mimic that “lightly sunkissed” effect. I have the very palest shade (00) and could probably, in all honesty, do with a tad darker, but have a look and see what you think. Here I am with just foundation (actually BB Cream, it’s the Precious one from l’Occitane, shade 02):

The skin looks fine, but see how the Joli Teint peps things up a bit in the next photo.

It’s just like a very subtle injection of life, isn’t it? A day spent outdoors tending to the flower beds, or what have you. (Does anyone actually do that? The moment the sun comes out I’m usually flat out on a towel with my eyes closed! Sod the flowers.) Unless I’m going completely and utterly bonkers, there is a definite difference. Actually more so than you get with Chanel’s powders, I think, but mainly because with Les Beiges you match the powder to your skintone, so it has less of a hue to it, more of a glow. (You can go a shade or two down, to get that pale-bronze effect, but I’m not sure it’s as warming and summery as this Guerlain gem.)

Read about the best nude makeup products…

And so: one person’s pointless is another’s treasure, or whatever the saying is. There are those who see no point in any of the subtle no-makeup makeup products on the market, but then there are others (me included) who bloody love them for their natural finishes. And also the fact that it’s very hard to overdo it with these types of “barely there” cosmetics – you’d have to be some kind of demented brush-wielder to get this powder wrong. It’s utterly, utterly foolproof.

You can find all four shades of the Guerlain Terracotta Joli Teint Healthy Glow Powder Duo (*takes a nap*) on Escentual.com here – they cost £31.95 each.

The post Healthy Glow Makeup: Guerlain’s Joli Teint Powder appeared first on A Model Recommends.

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This post should probably be over on my pregnancy blog, The Uphill, but I know how many of you follow Caroline and I didn’t want you to miss out! Though please do feel free to skip this one if you have no interest whatsoever in pregnancy. Or birthing. It was just a casual pregnancy chat between friends, really, with the usual eyebrow-raises and sick-making faces that happen when Caroline and I get together…

Watch more videos with Caroline…

On the subject of pregnancy: I have so many posts to write and only ten weeks to go until my due date! Time has just flown. Hopefully once I get my accommodation situation sorted I’ll have the mental and emotional energy to sit down and do some proper writing-up. At the moment, 80% of my time is spent trying to find holiday lets that a) have internet b) accept dogs and c) are within a twenty mile radius of my house. There is nothing. Nothing, I tell you… If anyone ever wants a sound financial investment, buy and then rent out a flat or holiday cottage in the Hertfordshire/Essex area – one that has high-speed broadband and takes dogs. You’d absolutely clean up.

The post Birthing and Pregnancy Chat with Caroline Hirons… appeared first on A Model Recommends.

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1) I was temporarily reunited with Mr Bear this weekend when I went up to visit my parents. He spent much of the time looking incredibly grumpy and the rest of it sleeping. Though when I think back, those are his usual default modes, really, so I mustn’t get paranoid about it! We had a good few cuddles, too, and he jumped on my face at 7am and headbutted me so hard I thought that he might have broken my nose. Happy days – I can’t wait until he’s home for good, though I think that my parents will miss him. They have turned into fully-fledged crazy cat people, carrying him around in shopping bags and “conversing with him” using a little series of squeaks and miaows…

2) I do hope that everyone is doing something nice over the Easter weekend; my idea of nice, at the moment, is lying in a pile of big cushions with a face mask on and my feet raised, reading my Kindle. I’m currently reading The Girl Who Fell From The Sky by Simon Mawer (£4.31 on Amazon here) because my Mum recommended it to me. It’s very good – as is The Glass Room, also by Mawer (find that here). Both set in World War 2, but very different books – The Girl Who Fell follows a spy-in-the-making who parachutes into France to deliver a special message to her ex-crush, and The Glass Room follows the story of a house – built for newlyweds but then occupied by many different people once the Jewish family are forced to flee and the World War takes grip on the country. Great (if poignant and sometimes sad) reads. I must do a big book update soon because I’ve been racing through them recently! Enjoy your long weekend – if you’re bored and stuck for something to do, you can read all of the previous Sunday Tittle Tattle posts here! 

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I’m back with another Beauty Reviews video after a little bit of a gap. I really enjoy making these –  capturing my reaction to new products when I use them for the first time, watching on the little camera screen as the makeup works its magic (or not!) on my face. This video was supposed to be all about YSL’s Fusion Ink foundation which is, quite frankly, a marvel and one of my most-requested reviews ever. But I can’t for the life of me find it; it was on my desk and then it wasn’t. No doubt the cat has pawed it onto the floor and the dog has then picked up the baton for his part of the “let’s hide stuff” relay and deposited it inside a boot, or beneath the sofa, or in one of the waste paper baskets.

So anyway, Plan B was my next most-requested review: the Chanel Vitalumière Aqua Loose Powder Foundation. Now for me, the words “Aqua” and “Powder” don’t really belong in the same sentence – unless this powder foundation is actually made of water. Which it’s not. It’s decidedly dry and…powdery. I don’t actively dislike it, but as you’ll see from the video, it doesn’t hold a candle to my favourite Chanel base (Perfection Lumière Velvet) and although it does give alright coverage, it’s probably not a product that I’d use on its own. I’d layer it over the top of a sheer base, a BB Cream or some kind of complexion enhancer.

Which would all be well and good, this use of the powder as a “supplementary” kind of product, if it didn’t cost a whopping great big £55. With the beautiful, glowy, creamy, velvety Perfection Lumière coming in at £33, it seems rather a tall order. (You can read a full review of Perfection Lumière here, with close-ups of my skin before and after application.) If we were to compare another powder base then Eve Lom’s mineral foundation is, I think, slightly heavier on the coverage than Chanel’s powder and it has more of a “lit from within” glow (read that review here). But it doesn’t come with a cute little marshmallow-soft mini Chanel kabuki brush, so…swings and roundabouts, my friends, swings and roundabouts!

Read more foundation reviews…

Take a look at the video, see what you think. The Loose Powder Foundation does appear to give off a lovely sheen, and I didn’t find it particularly drying, but I can’t really imagine a scenario in which I’d be desperate to use it. As a setting powder, I have always thought that Chanel’s Poudre Universelle Libre was one of the best (and used loads backstage) and if I wanted a “top coat” of something, then I think that Chanel’s Les Beiges is simply unbeatable. I use it almost daily to add a bit of life and healthiness to my skin (shade 20) or to give a really pale bronze sheen on my cheeks and temples (shade 30).

See more Beauty Review videos…

(The other two products in my video are knockout: I really like Benefit’s new blush and Jane BritishBeautyBlogger‘s lip pencils for M&S are juicy, pigmented and a dream to apply!)

Chanel Les Beiges: http://tidd.ly/816257c3

Chanel Loose Powder Foundation: http://tidd.ly/c3293459

Chanel Perfection Lumiere Velvet: http://tidd.ly/7833e124

Benefit Majorette Blush: http://tidd.ly/d1fce33a

British Beauty Blogger Lip Colour Trio: http://tidd.ly/914eaa6

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The beauty world, as you will have realised by now, has gone contouring crazy. I mentioned in my previous post that my preferred contour method, for a really soft and subtle look, was simply a sweep of matte bronzing powder beneath the cheekbones. None of that “snail trail” of illuminator across the top, no harsh lines, no muddiness. With that in mind, I decided to give the Clinique Sculptionary Cheek Contouring Palette a go. Much more “up my street” than the Chubby Sticks, which, despite having received a unanimous round of applause online I still can’t get the knack of. (The illuminator stick is very weak-willed, for a start – it barely shows up on my skin. Then there’s the dark contour stick, which only comes in one shade and can get a little muddy and messy upon blending, as can all cream contour products. Seems foolproof, with its chunky child’s crayon-type appearance, but I’m still struggling to get it looking as good as a powder.)

And so move over Chubby Sticks, enter stage left the Sculptionary Palette. I used the Defining Nudes version. Three shades – one highlight, one colour, one contour – for painstakingly creating that sucked-in-cheek look with your various contour and blush brushes. Or, if you’re lazy like me, three shades that can be swirled together with one massive brush (Chanel Powder No.3, perhaps) and applied slap-dashedly all over for an instant healthy glow. Behold my before:

And after.

Who needs lengthy contouring methods when you can lightly bronze beneath your cheekbones and be done with it? Marvellous. Clinique’s Sculptionary Cheek Contouring Palette costs £28 here.

I seriously doubt that this will be the end of my contouring investigations; I have become slightly obsessed with it, recently. Not with actually doing it, but just observing others who have. I enjoy bearing witness to the various levels of contour ridiculousness, but also having a genuine admiration when it is done really convincingly, when it becomes kind of like a weird optical illusion. I did a Max Factor video last week (don’t think it’s out yet, I’ll give you a nudge when it is) where I did a softer contour using the new Creme Puff blushers (which are properly lovely, by the way) and I really liked the effect. It was far stronger than I would ever wear in real life, but that’s the problem with this whole contouring craze: most of the demos you see are in online video tutorials, and you have to pile on loads of makeup so that the effect is dramatic enough. In an everyday situation, you need – and want – far less. Tread carefully, use the lightest touch!

The post Contouring Makeup Products Continued: The Sculptionary Palette appeared first on A Model Recommends.

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