Givenchy Newbies

G is for Givenchy 

 I finally got my hands on the Givenchy portable compact foundation/highlighter Teint Couture:

I still like my La Prairie for on the road, but I've been hitting pan so I was eager to stock up on the latest Givenchy.

I just love the gwp I've received: a dinky sequin pouch with a Teint Matissime (love that one) and a Givenchy lipgloss.

Also, I'm still a superfan of their Le Rouge lipsticks. I couldn't resist picking up a trio-set during travelling. And for modernity sake- a superblurry & overfiltered instagram picture:

 

(Why go for a clear 2000 px photo when you can have misty #instagram)

Beige Plume 102 is everything I always wanted a nude lipstick to be: absolute Brigitte Bardot kitten-ness. About 99.9% of any beige/nude lipsticks either washes me out or I get the dreaded 'born-with-no-lips'-look that happens when you are not a part of the Angelina Jolie-poutiness crowd. My lips are more of the Diane Kruger or Gwyneth Paltrow variety, which is not that much: we have to work our eyes & hair a bit more.

Anyway, Diane Kruger is also wearing a nudish lipstick with a pink tone similar to Beige Plume: I guess some undetectable (but correcting) lippencil as well. A subtle lip makes her eyes stand out even more. I really like that hint of terracotta/orange above the moving eyelid (gotta try that one soon)

gah, any facialist that could make my closeups look like that can have my future unborn child

 Gwynneth is opting for a deeper beige/pink and a good amount of gloss: I just love putting my Rouge Bunny Rouge "Uncaged Tigress" on top of the Givenchy Beige Plume for a similar effect: the beige makes a good foil to make the 'Tigress' sparkle (or perhaps roar?).

I already had Rose Boudoir 204 and I do not mind a backup of this stunning rosy pink hue. As for Rose Tafettas: I like the peachy undertone and will have to search my stash if I have sisters or twins.

Givenchy is becoming more and more a favourite brand of mine. I am eyeing up their Mister Radiant primer/glowifyer. And ofcourse the limited Xmas edition of Le Rouge Rose Précieux that I tested last week (check it on MostlySunny here)

Using, Used, Gonna Use

I'm such a chatty blogger but I will keep this round of "using, used, gonna use" concise.

1. Using: Sofina Primavista Smooth Base Coat primer in Yellow:
I've talked about my Rudolph (red nose) syndrom yesterday. This primer doesn't just make pores appear much smaller, but the yellow cancels out most of the redness too.
I've bought it a while ago and revisited it recently...and my nose thanks me for it

2. Used:  Christophe Robin Creme Lavante/ Cleansing Cream with Citron
I once got a GWP of this and I liked it enough to repurchase in large. Anyway, sometimes it happens that you like the sample but feel *meh* about the full-size: that happened (but I still emptied it because it's still good).  It works as a no-poo sort of cleansing conditioner (see what the no-poo method is over here, trust me, nothing to do with the toilet). I started to get *meh* about the scent which reminded me of Cif cleansing lemon scent. And, I am not really a no-poo person: I love to shampoo my slightly-greasy roots with foamies...sorry for that.

3. Gonna Use: La Prairie Cellular Treatment powder Foundation
 I finished up my Poor Burberry and hope to be much gentler for this luxury babe...

Poor Burberry

Beauty resolution 1: Keep your posh compact powders as posh as you can: 

 

Or, I'm delighted to have hit pan with my Burberry compact foundation, however, my poor portable has gotten it's mirror cracked. 

Shiseido Integrate Mineral Foundation in OC 30

I finally have a review of a Japanese cosmetic brand!

I'm happy to get back to the track I blog the most about. Although I consider myself to be a multi-flexible blogger, I often like to review beautyproducts that do not get that much love in the English language, but are still noteworthy...And...getting more popular as well in the so-called Western world: NY times has even published an article about it (here), featuring the most popular 'Westies' blogging about Japanese cosmetics...Kathi from Lotuspalace and Muse from MusingsofaMuse.

Fab thing is that the Western cosmetic brands learn and 'borrow' from Japanese brands. The foam hair dye brands is one of the most popular examples, but the Western version often gets lower reviews so, yeh, L'oreal and the likes just have to perfect their bubble dyes a bit more.

Oh, and BB cream is a funny one. Almost everyone knows they started making BB in Germany for post-operation people, and it gotten really popular in Korea (afterwards the whole Eastern part of Asia) and now it is getting popular in the West again.

Sticking to the subject: my review. Mineral foundations are another thing that has been popular in the West for a couple of years, starting out with Bare Escentuals and transferring into a million of etailer brands and larger drugstore versions.

So some Japanese brands jumped upon this bandwagon as well. Kanebo Kate has issued a Mineral powder, and Integrate suprised me with a fluid mineral foundation.



Shiseido Integrate Mineral Foundation in OC 30: 'be happy with the power of mineral'

I often prefer fluid versions over the loose powder forms. It is claimed that powder versions are often more pure and with less additives, but I like the fluidity and control you can get with fluid foundations. Oh, and they often add more moisture to dehydrated skin.

Most Japanese brand add their SPF's in their foundation these days. This foundation has a SPF 23. The PA ++ is added too.

The bottle is a squeezable plastic one and has a little opening. No pump:

 

I picked colour no. OC 30 ---> the darkest one. It starts with OC 00, OC 10, OC 20. I picked the darkest colour for when having a (self)tan.

To my suprise, it is quite a dark tone! My colouring was a NC 30 to 35 after a couple of self-tan sessions. The formula was quite the match. Normally, a Japanese OC 30...for example the Lunasol Water Gel Foundation in OC 30 (one I still have to review!), is so much lighter.

On NC30-ish skin:

LOL, it looks like a weird omelet my skin and the swatch like this!

As you probably can see, the formula is quite runny, if not watery. a little dot like this blends out quite a large part of the skin:


Shiseido Integrate Mineral foundation in OC 30- red line is line between bare skin & foundation



The arm is even more tan...ugh, I am not getting that tan again, but you can see the contrast.

For such a lightweight product, it really covers up a bit of imperfection.

It is not a glowy foundation like Lunasol Water Cream Foundation. It is quite a matte one.

That makes it a more suitable foundation for the oily and combination skintypes.

For me, a notorious shiny t-zone-y person during warmer seasons, I had about 3 hours of longer matte-ness compared to a non-oil controlling foundation (even with Jurlique Rose powder, which is not that great agaisnt the oilies, afteral). Quite reasonable, I believe.

Scent: none! Always a plus for the scent-sensitive and less-tolerant skintypes.

Summing up:

The positives:

* Colour range goes up to mid-tone or NC 30/35.

* Scent-free

* Mineral foundation

* Little bit covers quite some area

* fluid texture (might be a negative to some people...I'm quite neutral about it, but in the summer month I love a lighter texture)

* slight yellow undertone covers little bit of redness (also a negative if you are really cooltoned)

* Mattifying

* portable little bottle in not-easy-to break plastic

* mid-range price

* No personal breakouts and skin reacted tolerant

The negatives:

* Perhaps too matte for some people, which brings me to the next:

* not really moisturizing

* limited colour range, and not really suitable for cool toned skins

* not a real luxury level with the packaging that you will get with, e.g. Jill Stuart or Lunasol Water Cream    Jar

* Difficult to track down the totality of ingredients in English.

I bought it over (here) at adambeauty for $19.

Products with extra UV Protection

Ha ha, the dodgy title of today's post is not the most catching and inspiring one. Still, after another week of being an OL (office Lady) I just had to write something on my dear blog, even though I do not have any exiting new news to bring.

I still want to show you one of my latest sets I am really curious about. I have read so much on Diorsnow from the famous beautybloggers online (Oh..Pretty and Fuzkitty are quite enthousiastic about it) that I jumped on the bandwagon and bought a trial set on sasa.com. I still want to try it first before I splurge on a new product, if possible.

It contains a tonic-kind lotion, a serum, a sunscreen and a powder foundation in a really matching colour.

All of these products have a high level of UV protection against the ageing sunrays...

The next powder compact with UV protection is from VOV: VOV White UV cover pact SPF 50+ in 23.

One of my commentors asked to make a mini-review of it when I posted a picture of it in this post. And yes, it fall under my title that it has UV protection, and a lot of it, according to the description: SPF 50 ++ and PA +++



It has the size of a larger mobile phone. It has a beautifully pearly white exterior. I think it looks both rather sophisticated and still fresh.


The compact has a double layer when opening. The top part contains a powder puff, so you can store your puff rather conveniently in the top part.


The lower part has the powder foundation. It looks much paler on this picture than in real life.

Colour:
I picked colour no 23, which was the darkest colour of the selection (here). I found it to be the right dept of colour, however, I also find it to be a bit too yellow, as I am a neutral to cool toned Caucasian woman. Still, I like the yellowness in the foundation during the cold winter I encountered, because I had lots of redness in my face, and around the nose, so the yellowness cancelled out the redness efficiently

My colouring:
I am a rather pale Caucasian woman, or, it sometimes seems that I am paler than the rest when I walk in the cosmetic store in the Netherlands, and most foundations offered always seem too dark for me.
In Great Britain I seem to have more luck when I browse the cosmetic departments, as I often find that they cater for lighter skintones as well. I even find lots of foundations offered to be too light. In the Netherlands, in contrast, they only seem to cater for the slightly tanned women.

Scent:
The compact has a light to medium old-fashioned powder scent, which wears off after wearing it for 5 minutes.

Texture:
One of the benefits of the texture of the powder is that it zaps up the oiliness that I have in my t-zone. It also blurred out the unflattering view of larger pores. It lasted for an average period. I had to reapply after approximately 3 a 4 hours (the t-zones).

Coverage:
The coverage is rather light. I would not wear this as a foundation product on its own, because it does not have the strenght to cancel out my irregularities. Still, as a blotting powder for an combined skin and to reduce the redness of the nose it is quite efficient. Thus, it is absolutely suitable to carry around.

Sun protective powers:
I am not quite sure yet, because the feeble winter rays have not been sufficient enough to make a judgement. However, I would not take the chance to use a foundation alone as a sun protector, even if it says it really has a high protection. I prefer to use a real sunblock underneath and still have some extra protection from the foundation. So I cannot say that much about its UV protection.

Price:
It comes quite cheap when ordering on gmarket: It only costs $10.59 AND you will get a gorgeously scented lipgloss of your choice (out of 4 colours) with it. Well, that is a better deal than I would get in the local drugstore. Still, gmarket is not cheap with shipping, so it only makes a good deal when you already have some things to order from gmarket, and you can add this as an extra.

Overall:
It is absolutely a good deal when you have NC 25 kind of undertone, or lighter when you pick colour no 21. It is efficient enough to blot the oiliness away, and it is absolutely not irritating. The downside is that you order it by gmarket, which can be a bit of a hassle for some.

Paul & Joe Dual Protective Foundation UV in 10

On monday this week I blogged about my new Paul & Joe goodies that arrived from Beautybay.com. I already looked at the Bronzer in Deity 01 (here), and I have to say that I tested it on my face, and it looked quite natural, even though I was afraid it would turn up too orangy. The thing is, that P&J makes their powder so fine and sophisticated, that you can dust a light layer over the face (the places that the sun hits your face: cheekbones, nose, forehead), so it does not look like I have been tangoed...

I promised to take a look at the other Paul & Joe product as well: the Protective Dual Foundation UV in 10. Today I road-tested it in sunny weather, and I have been quite satisfied with it, so far so good :D



It has SPF 20 PA++. I have a sunblock in my moisturizer, however, I always like to have extra protection. Click on the next picture for the ingredients.

The case is so pretty in ivory creamy white with all the artdeco-esque flowers on top.

P&J included a sponge with their foundation. It is, indeed, sold as a powder foundation. I prefer to dust it on like a powder-like product: with a powder brush. The powder is so incredibly fine, and gives a light to medium coverage.

The colour can be described as NC20 colour: it is a tad too light right now, however, I am sure it will make an excellent companion in my bag during the Autumn and Winter months.

I will update this post with a swatch on my arm or piece of paper soon