Chanel Perfection Lumière Trial & Review

Perfection Lumière

I was fortunate enough to receive a copy of Chanel Perfection Lumière in advance of its release, and have been using it for the last two weeks now to give it a good trial run.  I've interspersed, every other day, with my other batch of Chanel foundations (Vitalumière, Vitalumière Aqua, Pro Lumière, Mat Lumière and Lift Lumière), just to do a decent comparison, in terms of wearability;  these are all different foundations in terms of coverage, finish and skin-type, so I wasn't trying to compare like-with-like, I just wanted to see how it "fit" to my skin in comparison with my other Chanel foundations.  This post goes hand-in-hand with this one (which provides a quick description of all the Chanel foundations I have and use).

Chanel Foundations

I received some Chanel Perfection Lumière in the post a couple of weeks ago and in order to accurately trial it, I decided to wear it every other day, with one of my other Chanel foundations in between each wear, as a reminder and a comparison base.

As long as I was wearing, and comparing, and making notes on all these Chanel foundations, I thought I'd blog on them.  Rather than having a long long post, I'm going to split it into two, this one is a quick description of all the Chanel foundations I have and use, the other post will describe my Perfection Lumière trial in more detail.

Lauren Luke Brushes & Comparisons

I have been using the Lauren Luke collection of Makeup Brushes for a number of months now, and I thought I'd blog some information on them.  For those of you who don't know, Lauren Luke is a wonderful and talented lady, based in the UK, who has YouTube channel Panacea81, with video tutorials since 2007.

These are genuinely brilliant brushes.  I have to say that I love these brushes, and have started to reach for some of them in particular, before I look for their MAC "equivalents".  Lauren Luke doesn't make any claims that these are dupes for other companies' brushes, these comparisons are mine alone to show you some similar/more familiar brushes, and discuss how the Lauren Luke ones stack up.

Under-eye Concealers, Correctors, Brighteners

There's a lot of confusion around with regard to concealers and correctors.  This post deals solely with under-eye concealing.  I will do another blog on general concealers at a future date.

There are a few different ways to correctly conceal the under-eye area.  For younger skin, and for skin with no darkness, no puffiness, no dark circles or redness, no pigmentation issues, then a standard liquid-formula concealer will probably work just fine.

For more mature skin (and by this I mean from mid-30s onwards, if not sooner), or skin that does have pigmentation, or puffiness, or redness, or more noticeable dark circles, you may need to use a corrector first, then a concealer over the corrector.

Read on if you want to know what a corrector is, and how to choose one for your specific under-eye problems...

MAC Concealers

I'm frequently asked about concealers.  Everyone wants to know how to conceal correctly.  This question, along with "what foundation shade should I use", is the biggest concern everyone has.  How to hide dark circles.  How to counteract redness.  How to disguise moles or blemishes.  How to make your eyes look awake and alert...

I'm going to do a second blog with more information on concealers, correctors and highlighters, and more in-depth information on colour theory, or knowing what shade and tone concealer to pick for your skin [Edit: see here for information on under-eye concealing].

This blog is essentially just to discuss MAC concealers specifically, what they are, what they look like, what they do, and which ones to use.  It's going to be a short blog, mainly bullet-pointed so you can compare and contrast faster...

Brushes I Use for Foundation

There are many types of foundation, and many types of foundation brush.  Depending on whether you are using a powder, mineral, compact, liquid or cream foundation, you may want to use a paddle brush, a buffing brush, a stippling brush, a pointed/round/flat-top brush... Even liquid foundations can vary in terms of consistency; thinner, thicker, creamier, water-based, silicon-based... and a particular type of brush that might work well for a creamier liquid foundation might not work as well for a thinner formulation.  It's a question of trial-and-error!  I've listed my top brushes and what I use them for.

Crème de la Mer Products

Crème de la Mer - The Moisturizing Cream

I have been using Crème de la Mer (hereinafter referred to as CDLM for brevity!) products for about the last ten years now; starting out with just the Crème (back when there was just THE CRÈME, or THE MOISTURIZING CREAM as it became known later) and then gradually moving on to more or less a full range of CDLM products up to this point.  I have recommended this range to friends and family of mine who were cynical, but who are now also converts.  I started using it in my early twenties, but I would say that I probably didn't need to start quite so early.

While writing a post on a recent Lancôme Visionnaire trial, I spent some time on the "back story", or the products that I've been using up until now, which included a lot of CDLM products.  This information didn't make the cut on the other article as it was a irrelevant there, but rather than throw the information out, I decided to write a quick post here about these products and give a whistlestop impression of each.

Lancôme Visionnaire Trial

Lancôme Visionnaire

I've been trialling Lancôme Visionnaire for the last three and a half weeks now, and I'm due into the Lancôme counter to reveal my findings during the week (a move designed, I suspect, to co-opt me into purchasing some more Lancôme products, but that's the way these things work).  This entry is a particularly long-winded tex-heavy discussion of my usual skin-care routine, and what I found while trialling Visionnaire over a four week period.

Brushes I Use for Eyeliner

I have quite a lot of eyeliner brushes.  Someone lately asked me which one I would recommend, which started me thinking.  I would have thought I didn't have a particular, specific, "favourite" eyeliner brush.  I tend to favour one for a while, then I reach for another, and that one becomes my favourite for the next while.  Which is no harm I guess, because it means I'm using them all, as opposed to just "collecting them".  And it means that I can pick up any vaguely liner-related brush and make it work (as opposed to a few years ago, when I started out my Adventures In Makeup, and I could only, and barely only at that, use One Particular Brush*.  Back at the time, this was the one thing I had to work hard at.  I still practice.

Chanel Brushes, and Friendship

Today I want to write about two things, Chanel and friendship.  Well, in one or the other order.

I have recently been ogling the new Chanel makeup brushes.  I already had just a couple of the older brushes; the Concealer Brush (#8) (reviewed below) and the Contour Face Brush (#5).

Deepest Darkest Blackest Black

One of the most asked questions from makeup enthusiasts is What is the best dark matte black eyeshadow available.  Not dark brown, not charcoal, not dark grey... black.  "Priests Socks" black, as we call it here in Ireland.  Deepest darkest blackest black.  The kind that really doesn't reflect any light back from it.  Darker than coal black... black as the ace of spades... black... oh, you get the idea.

This has become somewhat of a quest for me, and I've spent considerable time (not to mention cash) researching, purchasing, using... So why not share the results... What I've done here is to swatch all (actually, just "most of") the matte black powder shades I have, ignoring the handful of cream/liquid/mousse formulations, and leaving metallic and/or frosted and/or duochrome blacks aside also; just the matte blacks for now.