The Cowl-Neck jumper hunt continues… I don’t know why I’m so obsessed – I actually really like my neck but I seem intent on finding sweaters to hide it away! The two on this page are both from Karen Millen. They are gorgeously soft, have good chunky roll-necks to hide away in and a slightly shorter, wider cut that makes them brilliant to wear with high-waisted jeans. The Chunky Textured Roll-Neck Jumper above is perfect for lazy weekend dressing – I love the contrasting knitted panels and the wintery feel of the colours.

The black Merino Cowlneck Jumper (above, but clearer pictures here) is the jumper of my dreams. It’s just enough “eighties” to make it glamorously cool, but without the addition of shoulder pads or weird embellishments! It looks absolutely amazing with a pencil skirt and is a good standby to thrown on with jeans if you want to feel smart but stay comfy and warm. The shape is just beautiful.

The contrast panel jumper is £115 here, the black Merino cowlneck is here. They should be £115 each, but Karen Millen have a Black Friday/Cyber Monday discount – 25% off everything.

Karen Millen

This post was originally going up later on this week but I thought it would be incredibly annoying to miss the discount! If you want to take a look at my previous cowlneck finds (it’s become something of an occupation for me, finding nice jumpers!) then click here. (By the way, my lipstick in the second picture is Old Hollywood by Bobbi Brown, a lovely classic red – see here for more details.)

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I promised a full review on this foundation and then promptly forgot about it. Not because I haven’t used it again – in fact, quite the opposite. It has become one of those bases that I feel I can rely on for a good, believable finish that has a nice glow and a comfortable feel. The Bobbi Brown Intensive Skin Serum Foundation is one for the makeup traditionalists, really; there’s none of this “lighter than air” thing going on, there’s no demi-velvet-glow-from-within-diffuse-from-without sales-speak malarkey happening, it’s just a really lovely, slightly-dewy face base.

Bobbi Brown would disagree with this, I’m sure, because actually there’s a fair whack of sales-speak that goes with this foundation; there are skincare benefits (added antioxidants and certain algaes that are said to help reduce skin inflammation, to name just a couple) and there’s a whacking great SPF40 built in to the formula. Actually very impressive, but I’m the type of person who likes to keep my skincare and makeup benefits more or less separated and so added skincare perks in foundations tend to pass me by!

If, however, you like to know that your foundation has it all going on, then this is an excellent place to start – I’m not quite sure how it would work as a serum when you’re applying it last in your skin/makeup routine, but the hulking SPF40 is definitely a bonus, so long as you’re applying enough product. Either way, this is a smooth, silky, moisturising foundation that has a light, fresh feel.

Here I am sans Bobbi Brown Intensive Skin Serum Foundation. Bits of redness here and there, very slight dark circles – nothing too hideous, but enough to test a light/medium coverage foundation on. Which is where I’d place the Skin Serum Foundation – it’s certainly not a heavy coverage, but it’s easily buildable and so you can take it from sheer (especially if you apply with a dampened blending sponge, which I did first of all) to a good medium.

Ta-dah! Here I am after one quick application. I use shade 3.25 “cool beige” which (ironically) warms my skin up a little and gives it the faintest touch of that wonderful, healthy-looking apricot tone. If you’re a fan of illuminating primers then I can safely say that you do not need one beneath this foundation, it has its own very comprehensive glow. If anything, I might be tempted to use a pore-filling primer beneath it, because a bit of glow does tend to accentuate open pores, and if you’re not keen on dewiness in the t-zone then you would possibly want to whisk over it with some very fine face powder. (I’m thinking that Hourglass Ambient Light could be a good one.)

I have one gripe with this foundation, and that’s the packaging. It’s borderline ridiculous, which is such a shame: a glass bottle (lovely, very chic) but then this weird dropper inside that simply doesn’t work. It deposits product all over the neck of the bottle and it’s difficult to get it to drop the right amount onto the back of your hand. (And you have to use the back of your hand – I don’t know how else you’d practically apply it.) This would be so, so much better in a little squeezy thing or a pump-action bottle – I hope that they change it, because with the packaging issue sorted this foundation would be perfection.

And, you know, I’ve still been using it loads, so the product inside is definitely brilliant enough to overcome my gripes! If you have normal-to-dryish skin and you want a buildable, blendable foundation with a gorgeous sheen, that comes in loads of different shades, give this one a try. You can find the Bobbi Brown Intensive Skin Serum Foundation at John Lewis here – it’s £39.

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I want to talk about contouring in greater detail soon; there seems to have been this crazy fad for it and I’m not sure that everyone has been embracing the trend with quite the caution and trepidation that they should have been. There’s a reason why it’s a relatively new idea, in mainstream beauty, and it is that contouring is actually quite a tricky thing to get right. And it doesn’t suit everyone. In fact many people look as though they have simply “painted on fake shadows”, a bit like the bodybuilders who spray on extra definition around the stomach area to give themselves more impressive abs. Do we want fake abs sprayed on us? No. Do we want fake cheekbones painted on our faces? Definitely not. Contouring should be about subtle enhancement of the existing features, not creating some crazy optical illusion, but the world has taken the contour trend and run with it and now we all have weird facial hollows and cheekbones that look as though they’ve had strip-lights inserted beneath the skin.

I’m going to say no more on the matter for now, but let me just point out that there is absolutely nothing wrong with a spot of contouring if you work with your face and what it has in the way of bones and fleshy padding. Contouring can look amazing – sharp, polished, professional, “photo ready”. But if you have very rounded cheeks and try to make them disappear and somehow morph into Kate Moss’s razor-blade cheekbones, things are going to get weird. Look at your face, follow your instincts, work with your assets and not with the ones you’ve seen on other people. If we could all carry off Kim Kardashian’s contouring, we’d all have Kim Kardashian’s face. And how dull would that be?

But moving on to today’s product which is the Tom Ford Shade and Illuminate duo. I’m not going to do that whole “gosh it’s so expensive” routine, because we all now know how pricey Tom Ford’s makeup is. If you feel like a proper treat, a real splurge, then you know where to find it. If you can’t justify it (or won’t) then there are always alternatives. (I have some suggestions at the bottom of the page that I think work well. Still not “bargains”, by any stretch of the imagination, but less “all-out luxe”.)

Tom Ford’s Shade and Illuminate is a compact containing a duo of cream highlight and cream bronzer. It’s quite a warm and orangey bronzer, very flat so that it doesn’t reflect light, and the highlighter is incredibly sheer and non-shimmery. You apply the creams expecting to have two very distinct shades to play with but in actual fact, the highlighter barely registers on the skin at all. It’s only when the light catches it that it glows on the skin – there’s no glimmer or shimmer, no “snail trail” of light across the cheekbones.

In the photo above I’m wearing the highlighter and shader, both unblended – you can only just make out the gleam of the highlighter on the cheekbone, but the contouring cream is very obvious. There are two arguments here, about the level of pay-off: some might say that they want something very potent and show-stopping for the price of the palette (£56)); some might argue that for their investment they want something that is foolproof and that gives the finest, most subtle results every time. The latter group will not be disappointed. You can’t really go wrong with this duo at all – the creams slide on beautifully, blend out seamlessly and leave you with just the merest hint of a glow and a shadow.

(Please do excuse the fact that I hadn’t yet applied by undereye concealer in these photos! Massive oversight, but you can’t remember everything…) I used a little foundation brush to apply my Shade & Illuminate; you could easily use fingertips, but I like the airbrushed finish that you get with the buffing motion of the bristles. If you find that the brush buffs away too much of the colour, you can always build the product up. Makes for a more seamless finish, rather than relying on your finger-painting skills.

You can find Tom Ford’s Shade & Illuminate at Selfridges.com. Alternatives to the Shade & Illuminate would be Tan de Chanel for the contour (same lovely flat, warm bronze as the one in Tom Ford’s Intensity 1 duo) and for the highlighter, RMS do the most wonderfully sheer and subtle highlighter, the Living Luminizer. Creamy, non-shimmery and impossible to overdo. Bourjois have a famed “dupe” for Chanel’s Tan de Chanel; personally I don’t think it’s anything like it. Chanel’s is a solid cream and Bourjois’ is a creamy cream, for a start, but by all means give it a try. I must remember to do my comparison post…

I have just realised that my two “alternatives” actually cost more in total than the Shade & Illuminate! Cripes. You do get two full-on standalone products, but still. Bear with me and I’ll experiment with some more bits and pieces.

The post Contouring Mishaps and a Foolproof Fix… appeared first on A Model Recommends.

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