Forks and Brushes

Hourglass Ambient Lighting family has a new member ! TheSurreal Light palette !

The three items on my Forever Repurchase List are:

Apart from tons of makeup, every beauty addict will have countless brushes too! Today I am sharing my 5 favourite brushes and what products I use them with.

It’s Current Staples time again! (Check out my previous Current Makeup Staples post -> here ). If you are new to my blog or to this series, let me explain - My makeup routine doesn’t change that much. If I like a product, I could use the same thing straight for 2 or 3 months, despite I have enough makeup to supply a village! So in F&B here, I don’t do Monthly Favourites (because it will be the same thing every month), instead I do Current Staples every 3 months or so to share what I have been using. If I reach for the same product(s) for 3 months straight, I know (and you know) it’s a good one!! So let’s get started!

How do you freshen up your make up if you need to go out straight after work? In the past, I had been dusting powder all across my face, and topped up a bit of blusher and lipstick. But my skin was not happy, my face would feel dirty and blocked that it couldn’t breath. Not until recently a skincare expert told me that told me that I really should take my makeup all off and re-apply if I need to go out in the evening. But how am I going to do it when I am at work or out and about all day? It sounds such a hassle!! However, I have finally found my tricks so I am going to share with you today. It’s all about organisation and I generally carry quite a few of the products in my handbag daily anyway.

I always carry powder with me as my face gets oily by lunch time. The problem with powder is that the compact doesn’t normally come with a brush, so I have to take a separate brush. It’s ok with a medium size handbag, but it becomes bulky when I switch to a smaller handbag. So I always look out for a more convenient solution. So you can imagine my excitement when I heard that the luxury skincare expert brand Eve Lom has a new make up line (!), the line are for base products including a powder (!!), and the design is a powder/brush 2-in-1 tube (!!!). I pre-ordered it right away when it was available from SpaceNK website.  

The recent exciting news in the makeup world has to be the launch of Charlotte Tilbury's make up range. You can click here to see me visiting her pre-launch pop up store in Selfridges, and click here to see what I bought at the pop up store. The official launch of the complete range was at 9am on Monday 2nd Sep. Products were launched in her counter at Selfridges, and also the online store on her website.  In order to be the first 100 online customers to get a free sample of Magic Cream, I was by iPhone, staring at the clock since 8.30am on Monday morning I was through at the opening time and my order number was 100000099! By Thursday my parcel arrived!!! Here were my order:

Of all the makeup products, I love powder. My skin is combination leaning towards the oily side, so powder is my best friend during the day to mattify and freshen up my face. I have tried a whole loads of powder from different brands: Rimmel Stay Matte, bareMinerals Veil, Benefits Hello Flawless, Chanel Poudre Universelle Compacte... as you can see, from very affordable drugstore brand to the high end brand, I got 'em all! There are a few common problems with powder, regardless brand or price: - you put powder on to mattify your face, but it could end up looking too dry - the texture of the powder is not refined enough so end up looking cakey on face - some powder would sit/deposit onto the fine lines on face, especially around the eye area so make lines appears more visible. I was by no mean a makeup artist or skincare expert, but those are the problems that I found from my own experience. However, with a recent visit to SpaceNK in Soho, I have discovered my ho