Tag Archives: beauty

My Summer Base, Sorted.

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Meet my latest face obsession: Tropic Skincare. 

I’ve been wearing the Tropic Pure Effects Beauty Booster paired with the Correcting Cream Concealer for a couple of months now, with the pair quickly becoming my go-to couple for work day makeup.

Since receiving my Beauty Booster, Tropic appear to have repackaged the serum foundation to come in a new squeezy tube, with more shades and a slightly tweaked formula. This makes it difficult for me to review, knowing you can’t go out and buy this exact product should my review win you over! Why do brands do this to us? 😉

I’ll keep my review of the Beauty Booster short and sweet, and if you haven’t tried anything from Tropic before, especially their makeup, I urge you to have a look at what they offer! I have quite a few things on my list after being so impressed with these. Everything is 100% vegan, too!

Swatched.. Top – Cream Concealer in Light. Bottom – Beauty Booster in Light.

(The colour is a little off here and my skin and the swatches are looking much more orange than they do in real life!)

The Beauty Booster is a serum foundation/BB cream that offered me a surprising amount of coverage. What really impressed me, however, was the lightweight feel and non-greasy finish. I’ve tried a lot of natural bases recently and have found it difficult to find a match that isn’t very heavily oil based, or thick and dry feeling. With aloe vera juice as the top ingredient, this acts more like a serum (as the name suggests) and sinks into the skin beautifully, covering redness and helping hide marks, spots and scars making them easier to conceal afterwards. Like I said above though, this exact formulation is no longer available, so maybe try and get a sample if you can!

Moving onto the Correcting Cream Concealer, which is actually my favourite! Long-time readers of the blog will know that once upon a time I used the RMS Un-Cover Up as my concealer of choice, and this reminds me of that. Except that it’s thicker, very creamy, has more coverage and is not based on coconut oil (!!!) so all around it’s better for me and my troublesome skin.


I have the shade light, which as you can see above is a very good match for me, it covers under eye circles like a dream and can be dabbed onto blemishes and blended in with a brush or your fingers to create a flawless finish. In this summer heat I do tend to set it with a quick dusting of powder, as it started to crease under my eyes in the heat – but that’s a small thing really. I would definitely buy this again when I run out (though I think it’s one of those products that might expire before I can use it all! it’s lasting really well even with daily use!).

What do you think of Tropic? Have you tried their products before?

(P.S. Sorry this review seems all over the place, I’m rusty!)

Hurray For Hurraw!

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Dearest Hurraw,

Thank you, for coming to my aid when I recently started working in an office with air con. One minute it’s hot air, the next it’s cold, and it’s always, always dry. In those first few days, my lips cracked and dried out unbelievably fast! And of course, I wasn’t prepared in the slightest! I had had the Hurraw Moon Balm on my bedside table for a few weeks, using it as and when I remembered as a last minute balm before bed, it was good stuff. But whilst having a browse of the ‘New In’ section on LoveLula I came across Hurraw’s latest balm – the Papaya Pineapple lip balm. It took all of 5.8 seconds for it to become mine, because, who doesn’t love Pineapple?! I was also sold on the idea of this balm being my knight in shining armour thanks to the papaya enzymes. I was convinced the enzymes would keep chapped lips at bay by always lightly exfoliating and melting the dry skin away.


Was I right? Yes! Within 48 hours of regular and generous applications in the office, my lips were back to being smooth and happy once more. This balm now has a permenant residence in my bag for on-the-go and office related balmy needs. It’s pretty much tasteless and has a slight fruity pineapple scent, no tint and it doesn’t really add any gloss or shine to your lips.

The Moon Balm continues to live on my bedside table, a sweet vanilla scented nightly treat that I also like to reach for when doing my makeup in the morning, especially if I’m going to be brave and rock some colour on my lips. The thick, almost waxy balm offers immediate hydration and lasts for quite a few hours if you’re not regularly snacking. After about 5 minutes of the balm on my lips, they feel squishy and soft, with any flaky, or dehydrated patches long gone.

At £4.99 a pop, the vegan balms are at the pricey end of affordable, but well worth it. They seem to be long lasting and I just love this style of packaging for a balm, easy to apply and stylish looking, too. If you’re off on holiday soon I would suggest picking up their Sun Protection SPF15 balm, or if you’re after a little colour, they have two delicious sounding tinted options – Black Cherry or Cinnamon (going to have to get myself one of these!).

Have you tried a Hurraw balm?


U.S. prestige eye makeup market grew 9 per cent in 2013

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Sales of prestige eye makeup products in the US grew 9 per cent, to US$ 1.1 billion in the twelve months ending December 2013, compared to the same time period last year, the The NPD Group reports.

While fragrance sales remained flat last year, skincare and makeup were the main contributors of the U.S. prestige beauty market growth, revealedThe NPD Group. Eye makeup products, in particular, benefited from consumers’ growing interest in less traditional items.

In a dynamic U.S. prestige beauty market [1] that grew by 5 per cent in 2013, makeup experienced healthy gains of 7 per cent, with sales of prestige eye products reaching US$ 1.1 billion (+9% compared to 2012).

Long wear claims drove sales

“US consumers are embracing the art of eye makeup with the addition of products that go beyond the usual staples to their beauty tool boxes,” said Karen Grant, vice president and senior global industry analyst, The NPD Group Inc. “Today, less traditional items are emerging in importance. Eye brow products are leading growth and, in the larger segments within eye, enhanced benefits are the aspects fuelling increases.”

For instance, multi-benefit (+9%), volumizing (+11%), and long wear (+18%) products helped to drive the 2013 dollar sales growth in prestige mascara. Primarily, eyeliner growth came from pencils (+7%), long wear (+11%), and waterproof options (+10%). “Long wear is a theme that carried throughout eye makeup, showing sales growth in the eye brow products (+21%), and shadow (+9%) as well,” highlighted the market research firm.

Price increases

In general, the average selling price of prestige eye makeup was 3 per cent higher in the 12 months ending December 2013 than it was in the prior year. Eye shadow (+6%), brow (+4%), and liner (+3%) products experienced the largest increases in average selling price. With the exception of mascara, long wear products are garnering higher average selling prices than their counterparts in all segments.

“Definition that lasts is important to today’s beauty consumer, looking to enhance their eyes with minimal repeat application, and they are willing to pay more to get it,” added Karen Grant. “It has long been said that ’our eyes have the ability to make a statement without saying a word’ – eye defining makeup just turns up the volume.”

Skincare Review, Photos: Olay Fresh Effects Bead Me Up! Exfoliating Cleanser

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Skincare Review, Photos: Olay Fresh Effects Bead Me Up! Exfoliating Cleanser

Olay promises that when you use their New Fresh Effects Bead Me Up! Exfoliating Cleanser ($6.99) product you will get, “the freshest wash you’ve ever had with foaming bubbles and exfoliating microbeads.” I used it a few times and liked the gentle, foaming action very much.

My skin felt squeaky-clean as a result, and even a tad tingly (and tight on one occasion). This may be because I was using it in the winter, but the issue was easily remedied by applying moisturizer (which I do in any case post-face wash).

Love the price, too! I would recommend using this only a couple of times a week though — seems too strong for daily use. Also, I am looking forward to breaking it out again come summer.

Is this an exfoliating cleanser that could work for you? Let us know by commenting below, which will automatically be posted to our Community Forum (click here to check it out!) where you can find other beauty related discussions! Don’t forget to also submit a photo to our Photo Of The Day (click here!) feature, where a new photo will be picked daily. Your photo just might be selected, so get going!

– Yona McDonough

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Can cosmetics change the acid balance of your skin? The Beauty Brains

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Do you know how cosmetics can change the acid balance of your skin? Then you should listen to this episode! Plus this week we begin a brand new feature: a game called Beauty Science or Bull Sh*t.

Click below to play Episode 22 or click “download” to save the MP3 file to your computer.

 Episode 22 [ 26:17 ] Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download (402)

Show notes
Beauty Science or Bull Sh*t
In this new game, I give Perry 3 beauty science news stories and he has to tell the real from the fake. You can play along at home – just hit the pause button before I give the answer and see if you can outsmart Perry. Here are this week’s headlines, can you tell which one is TRUE?

1. Researchers have developed a vegetable alternative to petroleum based aerosol propellants.
2. Researchers have created the first detailed 3D model of curly hair.
3. Researchers have increased skin lotion stability with oil droplets shaped like hamburger buns.

Question of the week: Does the skin’s acid mantle affect how AHA products work?
BrainyBimbo asks…I’ve been told hydroxy acid products have to be in a certain pH range to work. But I’ve used products that were NOT in that range and they seemed to work for me. Is it possible that my personal skin acid mantle changed the pH of the products so they would work? Continue reading →