Complexion Haul

This would have very nearly been called “The London Haul”, but my lovely friend ended up mailing the things I requested so quickly, they were just a week apart from the only other item of makeup I've gotten recently, so, seeing as they're all complexion products, I see no reason why they can't all hang out together in this post =).

All the loveliness still in their packaging...

...and without.

I'll start off with the earliest and least exciting one, the YSL Touche Éclat highlighter in 2, Luminous Ivory, which I received just under two weeks ago. It's not really a repurchase, per se, but I have used it before. Okay, I nicked it from my mother's cosmetics bag the last time she had it and may have been the one to use it up... Maybe.

She's used it and other, similar clickable illuminators for years. This one's her favourite. Unfortunately, she's one of the many, many people who've been misusing it as a concealer and would often get frustrated over the poor coverage it gave. I ended up giving her my Bobbi Brown Creamy Concealer as I felt it suited her needs better, providing both coverage, hydration and slight luminosity. I don't feel like I need an under eye concealer just yet (many would disagree based on how little sleep and rest I get and how obvious of a toll that takes on my eyes and the area around them). Even if I'm not exhausted, the skin under my eyes is very thin and translucent, with blues and purples shining through, but that's not the actual telltale sign of my running on empty. Rather than getting dark circles, I get puffy bags under my eyes, which is why I decided to get the Touche Éclat. I'm well aware of how light its coverage is, but for me it's sufficient. It lightly diffuses the natural blues, and I only use a small amount in the shadows of my under eye bags. It doesn't erase all of this, not even close, but it definitely mutes the signs of exhaustion and goes well with the overall light coverage look I've been going for recently. All in all, a welcomed improvement to my complexion just two clicks away, and a happy new addition to my makeup routine.

Now for the more exotic acquisitions. I'd been putting off getting Mac's Studio Fix powder foundation in NC15, which is the closest match I can get from an over the counter foundation (I think I'll be using this term from now on), for quite a while due to how expensive it is where I live (and in general, well, to me). However, my makeup artist friend in London recently jumped ship and switched from working for Shiseido to Mac, and was happy to lend me her pro discount (can I have a hallelujah for that?!). She kindly got the powder as well as the following products for me, and after a failed attempt to have a friend of a friend on vacation there bring my order back to Tallinn, I told her to just mail it, as that was also perfectly fine by me. And mailed it was, on a Thursday, arriving, ready for pickup the following Monday (this Monday!). Problem is, I've been either catching up on sleep or working with barely any kind of a breather here and there, so I haven't really gotten to play with my new things. The Studio Fix powder, however, is really foolproof.

I liked it the first time it was put on me at the Mac counter where I live, and the only thing that truly hindered me was the price (for what it was, again, to me). I loved the nearly-there-but-not-quite shade and its high level of pigmentation. I really like the much needed generous coverage, because it is a powder foundation, not just a powder. Also, because of that, it doesn't feel as powdery, if that makes sense. It's definitely a powder, visible to the eye, but it's not as dry of a finish as a regular compact powder would be, it feels creamier. I'm not sure if this is good or bad, it just is. It can appear cakey and it definitely emphasizes the peachy hairs on the skin. Because it's sort of creamy, I don't know if I'll like it when my skin goes back to being oily. Especially for the center of my face, I really want a finely milled, drier than dry micro-formula to soothe the surface and tame the oiliness. I imagine I'll use Studio Fix just under my cheeks where I have the most scarring, along the jawline and down to my neck, as an additional means of blending in an ill-matching foundation (but we'll see about that too!), and use something lighter and more mattifying in the areas I get most oily. All in all, I'm very pleased to finally have this, and it actually feels nicer than I thought it would (I'm referring to the packaging, which always felt super cheap to me at the counter).

Moving on to Illamasqua. I'd been wanting to get a long list of things from them for over a year. I was put off branching out to unknown, expensive and hard to get brands during the absolute lows of my skin situation, but things are improving and I'm ready to tango again. I think this desire was reignited also during my quick visit to London last spring when I actually got to look around an Illamasqua counter, get samples and hear my makeup artist friend rave about them. It's very difficult for me to buy something completely sight unseen, with nothing but pictures and stranger's reviews to go on, so the fact that I could actually see the products, even if not the actual ones I ended up getting, was very reassuring for me.

First of all, the item I was most close to ordering online before I tried a sample, was the much raved about Skin Base Foundation. Thank god I got a sample in London, because it was awful. I got a sample of the pure white and the next shade up, in number 02, which shade-wise, would have been a perfect match for me, but oh my goodness was the texture and finish horrendous. It was like an amorphous, see-through rubber that refused to blend (more about that in my previous post). My bubble was burst in the cruelest of manners because I really had incredibly high hopes for Illamasqua... The 02 on its own was an absolute no-no, however mixed in with my own foundation (both the 02 and white) and applied with a brush (not fingers), wasn't a complete disaster. But still! It wasn't good enough! It wasn't the prettiest thing since Botticelli Venus and for the combined value of products I'd require to achieve a suitable foundation, it damn well should be. I left without buying anything that time.

Illamasqua have a number of different foundations, and a while back, around the time I first learned about the brand, I found a comprehensive introduction to each one on Dustin Hunter's youtube channel. I don't know why, but at the time I couldn't get into his style and didn't really pay attention. About two months ago I totally rediscovered him, learned all about Mac foundations and concealers and re-watched the Illamasqua videos. He does an overview and a separate demo along with personal thoughts on every one of the foundations, and thanks in part to him, I managed to really narrow down my wish-list. First of all, I crossed of their powder foundation, which I'd wanted as a possible alternative to Studio Fix, thinking their lightest shade may be an even closer match. I'd read several reviews about the powder breaking easily, how people who ordered it online received it already cracked, and in his video he says it's incredibly messy and it is, you can clearly see it flying all over the place! No thank you... And secondly, in his personal opinion, he found the Rich Liquid Foundation to be the worst (except for the powder one) that Illamasqua made, especially for dry skin. Very helpful. Naturally, that's the one I chose!

The reason I chose Rich Liquid foundation was because I've completely given up on the quality of more makeup artist brand's foundation for me, personally. I don't expect it to look good - period. What I expect is performance. The most important thing I learned from Mac's Face and Body and Face Atelier's white foundations, is that if you don't like the same foundation in some regular colour for whatever reason, you needn't even bother with the tone adjuster. Both of those foundations are very runny liquids and will likely overpower whatever your adding them to by the time you've achieved the desired lightness. This is why I chose the Rich Liquid Foundation in RF100, for the very reason many people, including Dustin, dislike it – it's thick, dry, paste like and very opaque. True, this is not something I'd want to put on my face straight from the tube, but, I think it's the perfect list of qualities for a tone adjuster. Per dollop of product, it contains more white pigment than any other tone adjuster I've seen, meaning in order to achieve whatever level of lightening you want, this is the product you'd require the least of to do so, meaning also that you alter the qualities of your existing foundation the least. At least, such is my theory.

The packaging feels really nice, the plastic is denser than I expected it to be, and I much prefer this bottle design to that of the Skin Base etc. It feels expensive, the black and white combo is very Chanel and I'm really excited about playing with the it. I haven't had time to yet, but first impressions are that even if it's not a gorgeous finish on its own, it is leaps and bounds better than what Skin Base was like! I couldn't help myself and swatched it on my hand on the bus after picking up the package at the post office. So far, I like it and I may just prove the theory mentioned above. I actually put it on half of my face the day I got it, over the makeup I'd worn during the day, before taking it all off for the night, just as is – white. It was really, truly white, and after blending, I was a purplish-grey shade of dead! I have never, ever worn a foundation that was “too light” (an issue that other people often have) and for me that seriously impressive! Anyway, really excited to further investigate ;).

Lastly, I got the Cream Pigment in Bedaub from Illamasqua. This may or may not have been a necessity, and it's highly probable that even if I succeed at making it work for me, nobody will find it useful and will think it's total overkill. But who knows, perhaps I'm not the only foundation fanatic out there, who finds herself becoming an amateur chemist in pursuit of the perfect shade and formula? This is a green, water resistant pigment, for which I've got a number of uses I'd like to experiment with, but nothing precise yet. One thing I'll say is that I checked another item off my wish list, their concealer, in high hopes of possibly creating my own using the pigment and a mixture of some other, thicker foundations I have in my stash.

So that is it – my haul, a bit of a review and a background story for each of my new toys. Hope you enjoyed it and hopefully it will have been a worthwhile investment and I'll have some interesting results to share within the next few months =).

Swatches of what I'll be working with