BOURJOIS | Summer Releases

While this might not be breaking news to some of you, I still think the Bourjois Summer line up is pretty exciting and wanted to share some of the pieces with you, as well as what I thought of them.

Bourjois are pretty much my favourite high street makeup brand.  The quality is fantastic, I think they're often overlooked by people in favour of other brands, but in my opinion, Bourjois is one of the most exquisite and luxurious high street makeup brands.

To kick off this post, lets take a little look at their summer lip offering.  The Rouge Edition Aqua Laque lipsticks.  They're liquid lipsticks which are very much like a stain in their texture (think like a watery gel with intense pigmentation).  You can see in the swatch underneath, the pigmentation on the red shades is impressive (the lighter shade isn't swatched, but shown on my lips underneath that pic).  The other shade is a 'your lips but better' shade, and is very beautiful, most definitely an every day colour, or one you could wear if you're really trying to draw attention to the eyes but don't want to ignore the lips :)  You can shop these at Boots.com for £8.99* each.

Next up, the La Laque nail polishes.  I really love the shape of these bottles, take 4 of them and you can make a little circle of them :)  Again, colour saturation is great.  You could probably get away with one good coat of this, although I have favoured 2 coats (I find nail polishes last better with that extra coat).  As much as I'm not typically one to wear white nail polish, I do think it's fab to put under paler or bright colours as it helps really make them pop.  You can shop these at Boots.com for £6.49* each.

Finally on to my favourite product, the Nude Sensation foundation in 41, Fair Nude.  On looking at this in the pot, I did think it was going to be too dark for me, but it's actually really lovely and works really well on very pale skin.  It blends in beautifully giving a soft matte almost-airbrushed finish on the skin (you can see me try it out in this video here)

I've found that it's lasted really well on the skin and surprisingly didn't show up my dry patches - whether this was down to good skin days or using a good primer first I don't know, but it's given me very happy skin :)  You can shop this at Boots.com for £9.99*.

Overall I've really liked this collection - all the products are great, but the ones that really stand out are the foundation, and the lip laque's - both really gorgeous.

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*Post contains PR samples

£15 High Street Challenge | July

I know how much y'all look forward to this post, so I'm sorry it's taken me this long into the month to get the post up.  In fairness, I haven't long bought the products either, the month has really flown by and I just didn't know what to buy... well, in a week or so it'll be time for the next one, and this time I really want your help - if you have any suggestions on what I can buy for August, please leave your recommendations in the comments :)

If this is your first time reading my £15 high street challenge, I'll quickly let you know what it is and why I started it.  Basically, in January when I looked back to reflect on 2014's posts, I realised nearly every product I blogged about was a PR sample.  And while I know they're all 100% honest, I know a lot of people aren't comfortable with that.  So in an effort to break up the amount of PR review posts, I'm giving myself a wee budget of £15 a month to spend on high street makeup - the catch is I need to try and buy at least 3 items for my money.  I'm not super strict with it, as long as it's around £15 I'm happy.

If you want to see what I've picked up on previous months, you can read them here.  So lets see what I bought:

I went to Boots in my lunch break on my 1st/2nd day back at work and saw they had a good Bourjois offer on, 3 for 2 and if you do the offer you get a free pair of Bourjois sunglasses - this is an offer Bourjois do every Summer, and for the last 2/3 years Bourjois have supplied my summer sunglasses through this offer :)  Each year they're different from the last, I love that.

I could resist picking up their new blusher, Aqua blush. I picked a coral shade.  It really reminds me of a watercolour blush type product.  It's so beautiful on the cheeks, it gives a really natural flush of colour that says put for hours and hours.  When I apply it, I squirt it onto my finger, dot it on my cheek and blend it in with a stippling brush.

I also went for the Healthy Mix concealer - considering how much I adore the Healthy Mix foundation (hello, holy grail!) I just had to give this a go!  So far I've only worn it under the eye (big mistake), so next I'll be trying it on other areas of my face :)  It's just a bit heavy for under eyes, and for me, the wrong colour.

The third product was a re-purchase, the 1 seconde nail polish remover, it's seriously great, fast and leaves my nails smelling super lovely :)  Much easier than faffing about with nail polish remover and cotton pads.

This was a little over budget, coming in at about £18, but that's not bad considering what I managed to get for my money.

What recommendations do you have for next month?

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NOTEWORTHY | High Street Blushers

When I wrote my last Five Favs post, I had a request to create a high street version of it.  Without reaslising it all the blushers I'd picked for Five Favs were high end, D'Oh! So I thought I'd go through my collection and pick out a few blushers from the high street I've really loved.  As much as I adore these shades, it's as much that as the brands themselves and formula's that I love.

As you can see, there's a pretty wide spread of shades, some being perfect for spring, and others might be more autumnal - personally I don't really wear blusher colours for seasons, more for my mood or to suit the look I'm wearing.

Makeup Revolution The One Blush Stick - £5*

Now these are pretty amazing - they're a cream product which is very well pigmented.  They blend beautifully and come in 8 different shades - 4 are matte and 4 are shimmery, including bronzers and highlighters - a really lovely collection.  They are dupes for the NARS Multiple blusher stick which is a more hefty £29 - personally with a price difference like that, there's no real contest.

Bourjois Cream Blush in 03 - £7.99*

This really is a beautiful blusher. I'm a real fan of Bourjois, their products are great quality and ooze of sophistication and class.  This shade, 03, is absolutely gorgeous and subtly shimmery.  It blends into the skin beautifully creating a gorgeous soft glow, always a winner in my book.

NYX Blusher in Summer Peach - £6

The NYX blushers are renowned for being fantastic, and boast a lot of dupes for high end brands, like Pinched as a dupe for NARS Orgasm.  This shade, summer peach, is possibly my favourite shade from NYX - it's peachy and beautiful, while being shimmery like Pinched, adding a stunning glow. NYX blushers are great value for money and a really great quality - not cray cray pigmented unlike other brands - this is a good thing.

Maybelline blusher in Flash Plum - £5.19

I really adore this blusher, the shimmery plumyness (is that a word?) of it is amazing, and SO beautiful in autumn... or any other time of year ;)  Now, the quality is great, although I have had the issue with this one where it goes all shiny on top, making it impossible to pick up product, so I've had to scratch it up to stop that happening.  It's nicely pigmented and really blendable, an absolute favourite of mine.

So there you go, they're some of my favourite blushers from the high street - both new and old and all still available to purchase.  All prices are correct at time of writing.

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*Post contains some PR samples, previously blogged about

Bourjois radiance reveal healthy mix foundation

Now this is something I've been meaning to review for a while now.  I must have bought it 4-6 weeks ago, maybe longer, but as I'm not wearing foundation all that much right now, it's taken me a while to get around to reviewing it.

This is the 2nd foundation from Bourjois that I own, with the other one being the healthy mix serum. It claims to give you a flawless complexion for 16 hrs, and with fruit therapy formulas to help enrich your complexion including: apricot for radiance, melon for hydration and apple to 'protect your youth'.  Both foundations are the same shade, Light Vanilla - No 51.  You get a pretty typical 30ml of product for your £9.99 which is pretty reasonable, and it comes in a pump dispenser (wooo).

For me, this foundation gave me a beautiful near-matte finish with a slight dewey glow - definitely a radiant glow.  It reminds me of the NARS sheer glow foundation, while I haven't had full bottle of it (sad face) I did get a good sized sample over the counter which lasted me for about 10-14 uses and this has a very similar coverage and finish.

I always set my foundation with powder and need to blot throughout the day, thanks to having oily skin - but some foundations tend to make me need to blog a hell of a lot more, and this didn't do that, I was only having to blog my t-zone and chin once every couple of hours.  The coverage remained good from application (about 7am) up until about dinner time (about 7pm) - then, for me, it started to go a little patchy, this might not have happened if I hadn't been blotting though.

It's quite a thick formula but blends and spreads really well.  I use 1 pump for each cheek, half a pump for my chin and less than that for my nose and about 1 pump (maybe just under) for my forehead, and then I blend it all in with my Sigma F80.  You can see from the pic where it's just on half my face how well it's evened out my skin and covered freckles and little red marks.

Overall I love this foundation - it's become one of my go-to foundations (depending on what type of skin day I'm having), it's either this, or my Makeup Forever photo-ready foundation or my Makeup Revolution 'The One' foundation.  Bourjois are knocking it out of the park with their great launches once again!

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5 product face for Summer

For those of you clever enough to spot it, yep I'm wearing lipstick, and nope, there's no lipstick photographed in the top picture, that's because I'm a numpty.  So, lets pretend I'm not wearing lipstick in this pic (which to be fair, I don't normally) and then it'll be a 5 product face, not a pretend 5 product face :P

Anyway, we'll just brush that under the carpet :)  So I've been mixing things up a bit recently, wearing less makeup, some days I'm even venturing to work without any on!  Sadly, those days I often get comments saying "You look ill, are you ok?".... yeah, thanks for that boost of confidence!  lol, anyway, after not wearing foundation for a long time due to having horrific skin, I'm now wearing it again thanks to a new and improved skincare routine (you literally wouldn't believe the difference, if I'd had the confidence, I'd have done before and after photographs), whoop!  Just not as often as I used to.

I wanted to see how few products I could get away with using that would stop people saying that I look ill, seems 5 is the minimum.  So here's what I used.

Base - Makeup Forever HD Foundation

This created a great base for me that set matte, and lasted all day with only minimal patting of my nose and forehead (something I have to do with every foundation I ever wear, in fact, even if I'm not wearing foundation I have to do this).

Eyelids - Makeup Revolution palette in Romantic smoked

For this I only used one shade, which was the 3rd from the left, similar to Urban Decay's Sin - a soft natural slightly shimmery shade.  I wanted the lashes to stand out and my eyes to look bright and alert.

Lashes - Bourjois 1 seconde volume mascara (waterproof)*

Hopefully you saw yesterdays review, if not, you can see in the pic above it's a pretty awesome mascara.  It has the weirdest wand, with spikes and... balls.  It doesn't clump, and it does a great job of making the most of your lashes.  Also, because it's waterproof it doesn't budge all day and there's no drop-off from it on your cheeks.  That does mean it's a bit of a bugger to remove though, even with Bioderma!

Cheeks - Sephora blusher in Healthy rose

If you've been reading my summer series, then you'll have seen me review this already, it's an absolutely gorgeous blusher with a hint of coral, perfect for adding a natural glow to your skin/face.

Brows - HD brow palette in Foxy*

No face is complete without defined brows, even if they're not that defined :)  I tend not to go overboard with my brows, but they're naturally very pale and sparse, so they need a little help to look more normal, and so far I've found that this is my favourite palette to achieve this :)

So guys, I have a bit of a confession to make, you know how I was wearing lipstick, which made this a 6 product face?  Well, it was actually a 7 product face, I just realised I was wearing an eye shadow primer too... I know, total fail :P  Anyway, that's still not bad for me, I'd normally wear foundation, powder, eye shadow primer, cream shadow, at least 2 eye shadows, liquid eyeliner, mascara, blusher, brow powder - so 10 products, not bad to shave a few off that :)

That's the end of this Summer series, see you again in a few weeks for my next summer series looking and some different products :)

 

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Bourjois 1 seconde volume mascara (waterproof)

This wand literally has balls, how random is that!

After all this time of having a decent camera (DSLR), I think I've finally nailed the mascara pics! Hubby helped me set up the camera on a tripod while I was facing the window (always did these free-hand before).  Oh, and sorry for the crazy wide-eyes in the last pic, the sun was so bright it was hard keeping my eyes from squinting.  I've included this in my Summer series because it's a waterproof mascara, so perfect for hot sweaty days, or days at the beach/pool dipping in and out of the water :)

So, we have a new mascara review (available in stores for £9.99* in Boots or Superdrug)!  I'm not sure if I'm a bad blogger for this, but *whispers* before this I'd never tried a Bourjois mascara before *eek*.  I'll slap my own wrist for that.

So when this little beauty landed on my door mat, I might have let out a little squeal of excitement. These are new mascaras that Bourjois have launched, this being the waterproof edition.  Let me just say this, before I get into the review, when they say waterproof, they really do mean it! It took them being soaked in Bioderma and furiously rubbed to get this stuff off, after a full day's wear.

Here's what the product claims

* 16 hour hold

* Immediate coating (thanks to the 'wraparound spheres')

* Ultra black

* Eye catching design

So, how did it fair against those claims.  In fairness, it knocked every last one of them out of the park. First up, the 16 hour hold.  At the end of the night after wearing this all day, my lashes still have a curl (which it kindly gave them) and not a bit of it had budged, it still looked like I'd freshly applied it.

Next - immediate coating.  You know how some mascaras are great, but they take quite a bit of work to look like that, coating them again and again?  Well, I didn't have to do that with this, it was very quick and easy to coat the lashes, I have it about 20 seconds between coats and I was good to go.

Ultra black - yep, as you can see in the pics, this is a nice deep dark black formulation, exactly the type I go for.

Eye catching design - I love the design of this (mirrored packaging), the only let-down is it can get hard to find it in your bag as it's mirroring everything around it :)  However, it's shininess helps it stand out.

All in all, I really love this mascara, if it wasn't so much work to remove, I'd be wearing this every day. Now what I'd like is to get my mitts on the non-waterproof version of this to see if it lasts as well - any of you tried it yet?

 

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Bourjois magic nail polish remover

It's taken me forever to get around to writing this, but I was also late to the party (typical me!).  I picked this up in Superdrug about a month ago and thought I'd give it a go.  I wanted a nail polish remover I could keep in my bag, that was hassle free and easy to use.  Inside this pot is a dark grey sponge, which is soaked in nail polish remover, and sweet almond oil.

Now, it claims it removes the polish in 1 second, this isn't true, but it does remove it really quickly! Definitely more quickly than if I was doing it the traditional way.  With heindsight, I should really have taken pics of me removing my nail polish, so I'm afraid you'll just have to take my word :)  With a normal cream shade, it takes about 5-10 seconds per nail realistically.  With glitter, it takes a bit longer and more effort, but it does remove it.  

One of my favourite things about this is the lovely scent it gives my nails & finger tips once the polish has been removed, it's the 'red fruit & vanilla' they've added to it - however, it does leave my fingers feeling oily, so I always wash my hands straight after using this, which usually gets rid of that lovely scent too, bummer.

The price-point of this isn't great, it's just over £5, which when you compare that to a pack of cotton wool and some standard nail polish remover, is around £2 more expensive, but even saying that, I think it's worth it.  It's much more hassle free, it's quicker and it's convenient.  It easily fits in my bag so if my nails are chipping left, right and centre when I'm out and about, in the space of about 1 minute, I can have all the nail polish taken off all my nails - that's pretty good!  The only downside really, is that after maybe 5-10 uses, the sponge inside does start breaking apart a little, I noticed tiny pieces of sponge on my fingers when I was removing them, but this didn't bother me as I was going to wash my hands anyway.

Would I replace this?  Definitely, I plan to as soon as it's run out or stops being effective.  It's so easy to use, it smells nice and it's convenient, well done Bourjois, another fantastic product from you - knocking it out of the park product-launch after product-launch :)

 

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Bourjois happy light base serum in matte

Over the last year or so, I've tried a lot of primers, and each primer has thrown it's own set of issues at me.  Like, rolling off the side of my face as I try to apply foundation (these tend to be the ones that feel like a powder finish), or clogging my pores up which makes my foundation look horrendous.  So far, the only ones I've found that really work for me, are the ones that masquerade as a moisturiser (think Nivea Express hydration primer).

So it's understandable that I approached this one with some doubt.  I picked it up at the Cardiff blogger event Helen and I organised a few weeks ago - 5 of us all bought the same one (well, 4 did, the other went for the luminous version of it).

The first time I used it, I did not get on with it - it emphasised my dry skin and pores, but I couldn't tell if that was because I was trying a new serum underneath it, or a new foundation sample (I managed to talk Laura Mercier into giving me a little sample of it at the counter).  So, the next day I used my normal Dior BB cream and the Vichy life serum, low and behold I had a beautiful finish!

After a shaky start it's now woven it's way into my daily makeup routine, who've have thought?  What I like about it most is how when combined with the BB cream and life serum it really helps to control oil on my t-zone like a boss.  I'm not saying it's perfect, it doesn't work with every foundation I have, with some it does the 'whoa look at these pores/dry skin' thing, but on the foundation I wear the most it works beautifully.

You only need a small amount too and you're good for the day.  For me, this worked out to be a great buy, which is really saying something for a primer as I have such fussy demanding skin.  So thanks Bourjois for another fantastic product!  You can pick yours up at Boots for £10.99.

This months Biggest-Pixi3 advertiser is the lovely Amy from Srslylou

 

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Bourjois colour edition 24 hr creme shadows

 L-R Petale de Glace, Or Desir, Kaki Cheri

** This picture has Or Desir as the base, then a Laura Mercier eye shadow duo over the top **

Over the last year I've increasingly used creme shadows as a base for my eye shadow (on top of a primer) as I discovered they added hours to the longevity of my look.

So when I spotted that Bourjois had released their own versions I was really excited to try them. They've launched with 6 different colours, I picked up 3 of them.  They claim to last for 24 hr, which at least for me they don't, but they do last very very well.

They have a true cream to powder finish and blend really well.  I'm not sure which my favourite shade is, possibly the silver.  It looks so beautiful underneath a silver/black smokey eye, and adds it's own little bit of sparkle.

I really love these and am looking forward to collecting the other three shades, they're such great quality with good pigmentation, they're not sticky which I think the Maybelline colour tattoos can be, and they're so easy to blend and apply.  Bourjois are really knocking it out of the park at the moment, each new release is as good if not better than the last, I can't wait to see what they do next.

This months Bigest-Pixi3 advertiser is the lovely Amy from Srslylou

 

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Friend Swaps Number 1

Hey everyone!  So, I have a friend who's also into Makeup, yay!  And we've started doing a bit of swapping, where I have stuff I don't like I give it to her and vice versa.  Over the next few weeks I'm going to do a series of blog post of all the lovely goodies I've had and tried :)

Today is the first in that series, and it's the Bourjois eye shadow single in the shade 92 Gris Paillettes.

Amongst other colours, I wore this last night and really loved it :)  There's quite a bit of fall out from the glitter, but that's to be expected.  Now, the swatches don't do it justice, there was a lot more colour and intensity on my index finger (from swatching it) than transferred onto the back of my hand.

It's quite a dry formula as opposed to creamy, but I think a lot of that is to do with the glitter.  In my limited experience with Bourjois eye shadow singles and blushers I've found them to be a drier formulation.

I really like it and would definitely wear it again, perfect for a sparkly smokey eye :)

Have you tried the Bourjois single eyeshadows?  Which is your favourite colour?

Pixi3 out
xXx

Friend Swaps Number 2

Hello everyone!  So this is my 2nd Friend Swap, and another Bourjois item :)

I love this item, I love the colours!  Teal, I love teal!!!  Such a beautiful colour - anyway, on with the swatches :)  This is in number 16 Crazy Baby from their 'Petit Guide de Style'

I love the ideas they give you in these little sets, like with the teal colour underneath as a lower lash liner, I love it!  I'm not sure I could get away with the white on my entire lid though, but it's a beautiful colour to highlight under the browbone.  I did wear this the first day she gave it to me, and the teal really is stunning.  It lasted all day, really well and really was such a pretty colour.

From what I can tell this was limited edition, there's no mention of it on their website any more so I don't think you can still get it.  But brands always bring out things like this, so if you keep your eyes peeled I'm sure that they'll do something like this again in the future.

How do you find Teal best to wear?  

Pixi3 out

xXx