Gosh, you must think all I do is sit around all day trying BB, CC creams and foundations. I have written my fair share of reviews on these subjects and have been quite opinionated on them all. Drugstore foundations are probably the hardest to test since color matching is a Herculean task and who has the time to return a used foundation? Ah, but the sheer glory of finding an amazing drugstore foundation that actually performs like a luxury one? Well, that feeling is hard to put into words.

I am going to give you the pro’s and con’s on each of these as I always feel like that helps to balance out a comparison review.  My skin is dry, there is so many things wrong with dry skin but the worse is that make-up can easily look cakey and exacerbate the look of lines, not a look I am trying to achieve. My goal is always to look as ‘non-make-up-y’ as possible. I want enough coverage so my skintone is even, but I still want to maintain my skin texture (I don’t want a foundation ‘mask’). Maybe because my skin is dry I prefer a more ‘glow’ (think J.Lo) to my look and veer away from anything that is matte. Both True Match and Fit Me! Dewy + Smooth were highly recommended for dry skin and since I was in the market for yet another foundation I thought why not give them a go?

I have raved about the L’Oreal Magic BB Cream, the drawback on that product is that it has no sunscreen, I love the feel of the BB Cream, almost like water, like you aren’t really adding anything to your skin. Both the True Match and Fit Me have this same unique watery/light consistency, which gave me hope, the cons on both products is that they have no pumps, application gets messy really fast. The True Match was a near perfect match for my skintone and I found it infinitely easier to find a shade via their quick quiz. The Fit Me was impossible to color match, I ended up taking in my True Match and holding up the bottle to the Fit Me to find the closest color. When I first tried the True Match I thought I may have found foundation nirvana, it feels as if you aren’t wearing anything, the color was perfect, the coverage was nice, I loved it, it even had a nice glow to it. Not even half an hour later it set in as a very matte finish, my face looked like a craggly desert. The worse part is I had gone to a client meeting like that–gasp! The Fit Me on the other hand, even though the color was not perfect, it was very, very close, it also stayed dewy all day (even in this blistering heat). I am going to say if you have skin on the drier side and want a glowy finish than I would go for the Fit Me! If you have normal to oily skin there is another Fit Me! option called Matte + Poreless, my MIL tried it and I can attest how radiant her skin looked. I am going to be using the Fit Me! for the rest of the summer and then who knows what discovery I will make next?

Have you tried either of these foundations? Do you know of a better way to color match a drugstore foundation? We would love to hear if there’s a drugstore foundation you are loving right now!

P.S. I found this site that helps you find foundation colors based on what you have bought before!

//RESOURCES//

L’oreal True Match Foundation

L’oreal Magic BB cream

Fit me! Dewy + Smooth

Fit me! Matte + Poreless

A few months after my daughter was born I noticed something rather disconcerting–a few rogue white hairs. I did what any person in my position would do, I removed them without hesitation and forgot about them. My husband though admonished me for doing that and said they would multiply; I may have grumbled something under my breath and waved his warning away. A few months later it seemed my husband was right, it could have been mere coincidence but I had seemed to acquire more white hairs than was possible to pluck without leaving evidence of their removal, this is the part where mortality sits in and you realize that you are aging rapidly and can not put the brakes on–or can you? I did not have time to go to a salon, I barely have time to do anything like eat, shower and work, let alone the luxury of sitting in a salon for a few hours to get my hair colored. The thought of doing a drugstore dye seemed very messy and extraordinarily complicated to my feeble mind. Then just as though my computer was reading my mind an ad popped up for a company called Madison Reed. The ad read something along the lines that it was not stinky or messy (at least that’s what I got from it). I clicked over, took their quick quiz and had my order in within minutes (I used Bolzano brown if you were curious, they give you a few suggestions to choose from). Yes, it is a fair more expensive than buying from the drugstore, but this company model was really thoroughly thought out. In the kit they send you there’s two sets of gloves and they actually fit nicely (not the trash bag type that come with your typical at home dye kit), one for while you color and then a fresh pair to put on so you can wash the dye out. There’s a barrier cream to apply to your ears and forehead so you don’t tint your skin and a cap to wear while you are waiting for the color to take hold. Did I mention there’s absolutely no chemical smell at all? I of course being such a newbie to this process after watching their videos had a freak out and contacted their hotline of on call ‘colorists’, they walked me through and talked me down from the ledge. I used both their very generously sized shampoo and conditioner set that comes with the pack (which I loved and will be ordering in full size, thank you very much). The results were outstanding, you would never realize that I was covering up anything and my hair is shiny and feels better than it did prior to the coloring. I am one very happy customer. I do plan to get a few of the extras that you can order–the cape, the mixing bowl and brush, since I do plan on doing this on a regular-ish basis and why not make my life easier? I would highly recommend!

This is going to launch of our week of beauty here, we hope you enjoy!

Have any of you tried Madison Reed before? Do you have another at home secret I should know about?

P.S. No, I have nothing to do with this company other than I really, really like their product and had a great experience.

It’s Monday, it’s the 1st, and we have not finished editing our class, woo hoo, for trifecta’s! It has not been from lack of effort, Michelle and I have worked every day straight for a over a week on just recording and editing. The screencast is a new medium for us and there has been a huge learning curve, it’s a lot harder than it looks. We will absolutely be sharing the process with you in case you wanted to try your hand at it, hopefully some of our tips can make the process a little more seamless.

In other news, I mentioned to Michelle that I am still in love with the Burt’s Bee’s tinted lip balm (I wear honeysuckle ). Even though I have mentioned the balm in the past, it is so rare that I am still in love with a product after more than one season that I felt it warranted another mention. Have you tried this product?  I like it because unlike other tinted lip balms this one seems to have a little more color to it, it’s also very moisturizing but not too moisturizing that it won’t stay on. It’s perfect for a nude lip, which is my fave look (I am after all a die hard lash fanatic and I wouldn’t want to eclipse all my hard work on the lash front). Michelle asked if I had seen the new documentary on the actual ‘Burt’, I had not, but I watched the trailer for Burt’s Buzz and think it looks like something that must immediately be added to the queue.

We did use some of the techniques from our class ‘Photoshop for Lettering Artists’ to put this post graphic together, something that we think a lot of bloggers may be interested in if they don’t know how to do it already. We removed the background from these images so we could place them on a white background (yes, we go over removing backgrounds!) the honeycomb pattern we made into a Photoshop brush (which you can download here). If you want to be on the list to be notified of when our class will launch you can do so here (hint it will be this week). We can not wait to share the class with you and our experience!

I am a huge BB/CC cream fan, I have reviewed many of them from drugstore to the more spendy and everything in between here.  I am always on the look out for something new and this my friends is a really exciting product! Okay, so let’s get a couple things out of the way. One- it’s a fortune for a BB cream and two- it’s not hideous packaging but that logo is not getting photographed on my vanity anytime soon. Now we can get on with the good stuff now! This product is amazing for anyone that loves the idea of a BB/CC cream but needs more coverage, but doesn’t want to look like they are wearing cakey make-up, because of course the beauty of BB creams are they feel and wear like tinted moisturizer. This has build-able coverage and I didn’t need additional concealer (the less products the better/easier for this mama).  I love that it’s a natural, good for your skin product (Jane Iredale is often sold via plastic surgeon and dermatologist offices to use after procedures because it’s chemical free).  There wasn’t any noticeable scent that I could detect, very neutral. The consistency comes out thicker than most BB creams (similar to the ‘It Cosmetics’ that I reviewed) but if you warm it on the back of your hand and apply it, it blends very nicely. One beauty blogger said that she liked it because it gave her face ‘a nice clean canvas’ to work on, I agree, you can get an even complexion quickly with this BB cream. I have really loved using it and have been wearing it for a couple of weeks, besides the price the only other con for me is that there’s not a lot of shades to choose from and I may be leaning towards an in-between shade that doesn’t exist, it’s just way too expensive to try to blend two shades together and who has that kind of time? But if you can get a color match this product would be nirvana for anyone that wants to jump on the BB cream bandwagon but feels they need more coverage than most give. Yes, it will cover hyper-pigmentation, broken capillaries and blemishes, I would liken it to a concealer + BB cream in one (and yes, there’s an SPF too). You can read more about it here.

If you want to see some of my other BB/CC cream reviews visit here, here and here How about you, have you tried this product or have any recommendations?  I am always on the look out!

I often heard stories of people (not naming names) that would go to bed with make-up on and I’d think ‘how tired and lazy do you have to be to not wash your face at night?’  Cut to 2015 where I can tell you exactly how tired and lazy I am with my skincare regime. I admit I have not gone to sleep with make-up on yet, it’s actually a miracle these days that I do actually wear it. I have tried the cleansing towlette’s but didn’t have much success with them, some were too perfumy, others burned, one was perfumy and burned, I always felt like my face wasn’t that clean and ended up splashing water on it and well if I am going that far I might as well have just washed my face, right?  My friend who knows I am beauty-phile asked me about Micellar water and if I had any recommendations, first of all I have been living under a rock so no I had no recommendations and I had never even heard of the product before but of course my curiosity was peaked. I think my friend inadvertently saved both me and my skin, because I may have found the holy grail of skincare products perfect for dry/sensitive skin and for someone too lazy/tired to wash their face.Read More