"It's not me, it's you. And seriously, knock it off already."

...or, the saga of my break up with one of my bronzers.

When I started out this week, I'd planned that this week at BBoB, we'd be talking about CC Creams. I'd just spent two weeks going over BB Creams, it seemed like the next logical step. I didn't have any cleverly alliterated titles, like "Battle of the BB Creams" or "BB Cream Battle Royale" (you only saw that one if you follow me on twitter...), but I'd figure it out.

And then I realized I had a problem.

I'd been kind of panning foundations lately, crabbing that they were all grabbing up my bronzer. Now typically, if you have problems with your foundation grabbing up color, I'd ask if you were well exfoliated and moisturized. And typically, people would say no to one of those questions. But I use moisturizer every morning and night, an exfoliating face wash, and an exfoliating scrub in the shower. I got "exfoliated and moisturized" on lock.

So that means I've got a different problem.

It wasn't the foundation, I'd changed out my foundation multiple times over and still had this problem. It wasn't the primer, because I'd changed that out multiple times over as well.

That means my problem came down to one of these guys:

The brush is the "Heavenly Face" brush from Bare Escentuals. And the ELF Contouring Blush and Bronzing Powder duo in "Turks and Caicos", a very pretty light and dark bronzing duo, that was surprisingly hard to get a nice picture of:

Pretty, right? 

So Monday, I do my makeup. Wet N Wild Cover All Primer, Yes To Grapefruit CC Cream (which, for the sake of equal comparison, I used the remainder of the week), the ELF bronzer, and the Bare Minerals brush.

I looked like this:

See the problem? You can notice in particular over the right eyebrow (left as you're looking at the photo). Despite actually blending fairly well, I'm visibly splotchy.

So...guys. I'm cool with being a lot of things. But I'm not cool with being orange. So I narrowed down my trouble starters, and tried to figure out which was which.

The next day, I got up, and used the same face wash, same moisturizer, same CC Cream, same bronzer duo...but a different brush. I came up with this:

So, OK. That's getting there. But it's still not quite right. And please to notice, how my face is several shades lighter than my neck? Yeah, we got lots of problems here.

(For the record, I actually don't know what that silver glimmer under my eye is. It was in every picture I took that day.)

So today, I took another shot at it. This time, I went back to the Heavenly Face brush, but used a different bronzer. POP Beauty was the lucky guy. And sidebar, POP Beauty bronzer completely changed the way I look at bronzer. I recommend. But that's a story for another day. At any rate, today - same face wash, moisturizer, foundation, primer, new bronzer. Please to enjoy;

And we've nailed it. I actually could have stood to go with a little more bronzer in this case, but notice? My skin doesn't look splotchy and uneven? And my face and my neck are the same color?

I try to keep all these pictures the same - I sit by the same window in the house, it's always at the same time of day, tried to keep my look similar, everything. I think the white maybe washed me out a little (or at least I'm going to tell myself that, cause holy cow, I look pale in this picture, haha...).

So I do believe the problem causer is the "Turks and Caicos" contouring duo from ELF. Heavenly Face brush, you live to tell another day. I like that brush a lot - brushes, if you pay attention to them, really tell you what you're supposed to do with it. Short, concentrated bristles - like the Heavenly Face brush has - provide short, concentrated bursts of color. I typically use this brush for powder, or for like, my highlight and contour jobs. It's a great brush for buffing as well. I do recommend the brush.

I dearly want to recommend this bronzer as well. I like ELF products as a general rule - I think their studio line (the black) is better than the basic (white) line, and I'd put their mineral line up next to whatever you've got. Their line is a little hit and miss - for my entertainment dollar, they do their best work in powders, but unfortunately, this bronzer and my skin just aren't jiving right now. Moving on with things - I've been on a bronzer buying binge lately, mercy knows I've got more than enough of them to get me by!

So, ELF contouring blush and bronzing duo? It's not me, it's you. And seriously, knock it off already.

I've tried other ELF products, and had considerably better luck. I recommend!

Last up in the battle of the BB Cream all-stars...

So for the last few weeks, I've been trying out, and talking to you guys about, different drug store BB Creams. To review, a BB cream is...well, is a punched up tinted moisturizer. They're good for you if you've generally got good skin and just want the tone evened out a little, or you can layer it with your foundation if you're not getting enough coverage from your foundation already.

Over the last two weeks, we've talked about the Fergie for Wet N Wild version (not to shabby, but a little color grabby), the Maybelline version (really nice, which it's not hard to make a nice BB cream, when that's not actually what you made!), and Olay (probably the closest to a BB cream in the technical sense, but falters in that the colors run warm, and the shade range is very small).

So last up!

Garnier! 

Garnier boasts among the most extensive line of BB creams of any brand I think I've probably seen. They have the one you see pictured (who we'll call 'original formula' because...well, because it makes me laugh), oil control, anti-acne, and anti-aging. So whatever your needs are, Garnier wants to be your BB cream provider!

Where Maybelline's BB Cream promised 8 benefits that were really all just synonyms for each other, Garnier keeps it a little more simple, promising only to "renew, brighten, even skin tone, protect and hydrate".

To my eye at least, it does all of those things, quite well.

Let's go to the pictures!

Now admittedly, whether a skin care product renews and hydrates is a little subjective, because you can't really see that sort of thing on camera anyway. But, as for what we can see - little unevenness in tone, the red around the nose that I constantly blather on about, all that jazz?

The after? Evened out my skin tone, and my skin does look noticeably brighter, and fresher than in the before picture. Thumbs up, Garnier!

Garnier considers this to be a moisturizer, so you'll find this with their skin care products at your local drug store. And it does come out like a moisturizer - thick and creamy like a lotion, rather than the thin and runny that you'd expect from a foundation.

I typically apply with a foundation brush, over primer. I find that I can't get the BB cream smoothed down in a way that makes me happy, when I just use my fingers. I also appreciate about the Garnier BB cream that the coverage builds better than with some. You're actually seeing two coats through most of my t-zone, although you wouldn't know.

The Wet N Wild and Olay versions both suffered from a bit of the color grabbiness, but I didn't have that problem here. I purposely, as I was doing these posts, kept my look very simple, I wanted my actual skin to be the center of each picture. I used POP Beauty bronzer in this picture. Not only did it not grab any of the color, it probably could have stood up to a little more!

There's no over bearing scents to note here - I bought a Garnier face wash that makes me crazy because the scent is so strong. The shades are limited (Fair/Light, Light/Medium and Medium/Deep, according to the Garnier website. I'm wearing Fair/Light), but don't run as warm as Olay, which has a similar color range. The coverage is good, and builds well.

So, at the conclusion of our BB Cream Battle Royale, as if the conclusion weren't genuinely obvious, I'd have to say - Garnier is the champ of the drug store BB Creams. No scent, layers well. Brightens skin and evens out skin tone. Washes off cleanly at the end of the day. If you're going drug store for a BB cream, I do believe this is your guy. The Wet N Wild was a great color match, but too color grabby. Maybelline tends to run a smidge pink for me, and as I've pointed out - it wasn't really a BB cream anyway. And the Olay verion is a little warm, and shade limited. And as Garnier doesn't suffer from any of those problems, I've got to declare Garnier the champ. But I'm not one to let Garnier bask in the glow of victory for long, I'm sure I'll be back in no time to tell you about some other awesome BB cream. =)

See you next time, lovelies!

Like BB Cream? Me too! This isn't the only time I've talked about it!

Do I look familiar? You may have also seen me here!

Battle of the BB Creams continues!

ICYMI: Round One and Round Two. My verdicts were that Wet N Wild's entry was none too shabby, but was a little color grabby. And Maybelline didn't particularly make a BB Cream, but what they did actually make was very nice.

At any rate, on to round three!

This round, we're on to Olay!

Olay Fresh Effects, they of the beautiful and bright packaging, threw their hat in to the BB Cream ring. And, since I spent most of the Maybelline entry crabbing about the fact that I think Maybelline actually made a foundation and just called it a BB Cream, let me be clear - of all the drug store BB Creams that I've tried, Olay Fresh Effects comes the closest to what I imagine the Eastern market BB Creams to be like. It's not just a light coverage foundation. It's a lotion. That just happens to be tinted. Which, just to point out the probably obvious, means that if you're one of our oily skinned sisters, this is probably not your jam, it's probably too emollient for you. And if you're one of our dry skinned sisters, this will probably be among your favorites.

My before shot came out just a tad blurry, but in the sake of...making everything equal (?) I'm going to run it anyway. Rounds one and two also included bare faced shots of me, if you really feel the need to get a good look at my no makeup wearin' mug. :D

I think at this point, I had on a bit of mattifying lotion, and that was about it. Pretty good skin day, as they go. Little redness, some uneven texture issues (which no BB Cream, regardless of how awesome, is going to fix...). None too shabby.

After shot. 

My skin certainly looks brighter, and has a bit of polish to it that it didn't before. But notice how the red around the nose is still visible? So the coverage is to the lighter side. Although I suppose if coverage was that much of a sticking point for me, I'd be discussing foundations, not BB Creams, right?

And I've found that in the past, I've also had trouble with this BB Cream grabbing my powder cosmetics. In fact, in person, my chin looked pretty orange. I applied my bronzer with the biggest, fluffiest brush that I had. 

The Olay Fresh Effects BB Cream though, loses out with me for one problem, and unfortunately, it's one you can't really see all that well in the pictures. Simply - it runs warm. The colors are warm. And I'm not - I actually fancy myself a bit of a Neutral tone. I've found that warm colors make me look cool toned, and the cool makes me look warm. 

So the "flaws" in this cream - couldn't completely camouflage the redness around my nose, little color grabby with the bronzer, scented for some inexplicable reason...those are all things I can look over. And if your skin runs to the dry side, you should overlook them too, cause this is a good product. It's just warm, and I'm not. Although, given that it's January and I'm in Michigan, I'd sure like to be. ;)

So so far, the winner in the "Battle of the BB Creams" is Maybelline, just by default. I stand by my contention that they didn't make a BB Cream at all, but when your competition is color grabby (Hi, Wet N Wild!) and limited in color choices (Hi, Olay!), you come out lookin' alright.

One more cream in our "battle!" See you next time!

Test...don't mind me...

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Battle of the BB Creams, Round Two!

(If you missed Round One!)

Today, we're talking Maybelline Dream Fresh BB Cream!

The beauty shot, as it were:

I don't have a lot to complain about with this one, actually. The colors are nice (they run a little pink, so if you're of the pink toned persuasion, you'll get along nicely with these), no overbearing scents - which is a problem I grumble about semi-frequently. Nice wear time, everything is very good.

My biggest problem?

Maybelline made a light/medium coverage foundation, and called it a BB Cream. I mean...I'm not in their marketing department, they can do whatever they want. But it even says balm right in the title. When you think of a balm, what do you think of? A nice, rich, emollient cream, right? You're not getting that here. You're getting a liquid foundation. 

At any rate - despite the fact that I don't think this is a BB cream at all, it's not terrible. When I actually had this on, I had about three minutes to finish my makeup, get some decent snaps, and get myself and my son out of the house, so I look like a crazy, crazy, crazed woman in all the pictures. So I swatched this one on the back of my hand instead. Please to enjoy;

Bare handed. Similarly to my face (which I've shown you before), little ruddiness, that red you see in the center is a scar from a surgery a couple of summers ago, otherwise, nothing major to cover up.

Covered. Nice, right?

To be clear - I don't think this is a bad product at all. I really don't. Nice coverage, wears well, good color match, no offensive odors. It's everything you'd want in a bb cream light coverage foundation. So I guess my only dispute is in truth in advertising. Make a foundation. That's fine. Chances are good I'll end up buying it eventually regardless. Just, in your chase to be first to the US market with a BB cream, don't make a foundation, and then tell me you made a BB cream. No, you didn't! You made a foundation!

So, while I generally like this BB Cream a lot, and have been pretty specifically grumpy about the fact that I don't think it's a BB Cream at all, in the spirit of the "Battle of the BB Creams", between Wet N Wild and Maybelline, I'd have to tell you to pick Maybelline. This is good for those days where your skin is pretty good, you just need a little extra oomph. :)

Tomorrow, round three!

Until then!

Battle of the BB Creams, Round ONE!

All week, I'm featuring various BB Creams. Mainly to compare them to each other, and partly because...well, because I've got a lot of them. So let's talk BB Creams!

Yesterday, I explained what a BB Cream is. Sort of a heavy weight tinted moisturizer (some brands have actually phased out their tinted moisturizer, in favor of the popularity of BB Creams), or a light weight foundation, depending on the brand you're working with.

Today, we're talking:

Fergie for Wet N Wild's BB Cream 8 in 1 beauty balm!

This product came out with much the consistency of a foundation. I wouldn't have thought anything was amiss if it'd said it was one in fact. No funky smells, nothing seemed out of the ordinary in any way. Stellar so far!

And just for the sake of comparisons, this is the face I'm working with:

Little ruddy, little uneven in places, but nothing terrible right? Right. Nothing a BB Cream shouldn't be able to handle.

I washed my face with the Aveeno Positively Ageless face wash, applied the Aveeno Day Cream, and L'Oreal Revitalift Miracle Blur. Used a foundation brush to apply the BB Cream. After application;

See, this is where me and this BB Cream start to run off the rails with each other a little. Coverage is good, not great. See the left side of my nose (right side, as you're looking at the photo). See how it's still visibly red? See how the blemish by my lip is still pretty pink too? See me being annoyed with that?

Let's not lie to each other - the color match is pretty impeccable. This is "Light", and it's probably right up there with the best matched foundations/BB Creams I've ever worn. But if it's not covering everything, then it doesn't make much of a difference.

Also, it never fully absorbed in to my skin. I had to powder over it, to get that slightly tacky feeling to go away.

After powder, bronzer, blush, eyebrow wax, and mascara;

Notice how I look...kind of splotchy? And how what looked like a excellent color match in the last picture no longer really does?

Meet my biggest problem with this BB Cream - the color grabbing! I used my typical brushes, and my typical technique, and my typical product, and began trying to do a speedy little contour. I do that a lot, should have been no big deal. The BB Cream grabbed up the color, as if I were rubbing the bronzer compact directly on to my skin. Which I did not! I buffed and buffed and buffed, and was able to get the color to lighten up some, but there's still some visible splotchies. And just to test, to make sure that it wasn't that my bronzer had gone weird, I swatched both my highlight and contour shades on the inside of my arms. They were not the guilty parties on this one, it was hands down the BB Cream.

Just to put them all next to each other:

My verdict? Unless you plan to wear nothing but the BB cream and translucent powder, skip it.

Battle of the BB Creams!

This week, I'm testing out not one, not two, but FOUR BB creams! My, that's a lot of BB Cream!

But I find a lot of people asking "What is a BB Cream, and do I need one?"

Our good friends at webmd.com say that BB Creams were first invented by a doctor in Germany, who wanted a cream to be able to give his patients that would both protect skin, and offer coverage after laser treatments.

The cream eventually caught on in South Korea, then catching fire in Asia. There, the main benefit was the streamlining opportunity it offered to a woman's beauty routine. Rather than using 7 or 8 different products, if your BB cream is well formulated, you could use just the one, and achieve the same results!

But, as they often do, by the time BB creams made it to the American markets, it had been...well, Americanized, and wasn't quite the wonder cream it'd been when it initially began gaining ground overseas. Now, many consider BB cream to be an equivalent to tinted moisturizer, or more like a lightweight foundation.

Maybelline (who we'll hear from their BB Cream entry later this week), promises that their BB cream performs 8 functions - "Blurs imperfections, Brightens, Evens skin tone, Smooths, hydrates, enhances, Protects with SPF 30, and 0% oils and heavy ingredients."

Now, never mind that many other products on the market do that exact same thing. And, never mind that many of those listed things are simply euphemisms for each other. That's a handy thing, if I can get all that in one shot, mama want!

Do you need BB Cream in your life? It kind of depends. If you're like me, and you've got pretty good skin generally, maybe just a little ruddiness to cover over, or a little dullness you're hoping to brighten up, then yes, BB cream is a good product for you. You'd probably also be satisfied with it's sister, CC cream. If you're not one with just a little ruddiness to cover over, you've got real skin problems of some sort - acne, etc., then you're going to simply want more coverage than a BB Cream will offer.

If you opt to use BB Cream, then it goes on in your beauty routine in place of foundation. Or, for the boost I guess, it goes on under your foundation - if you want the extra coverage.

I've got FOUR different kinds of BB Cream I'll be trying out this week, for your singing and dancing pleasure. See you back here tomorrow!

Go, go, Electro!

(From left: Minty Sheer, Pink Shock, Oh! Orange!)

Maybelline Baby Lips and I have a weird relationship. Like, I don't want to admit that I like them...but I also own like 10 of them. So we've apparently got a better than average relationship with each other.

A friend noticed me carrying in my pocket, and asked what they were like, and if she could swatch it on her hand. I said she could, and I made a comparison that was probably more apt than I realized at the time, even. Without thinking, I went "They're like Lip Smackers, for grown ups!"

Think about it - I'm right! Tinted, but not overly so. Flavored, but not overly so. Mostly just a nice, low maintenance gloss, that looks flashy coming out of your pocket, and has completely worn off in about an hour.

Now to be fair, that makes it sounds like I don't like these at all. And I do. Gives a quick, easy, glossy lip. Little color - the color varies a little. Like, in this electro set, the pink and orange have more pigment to them than the green color does. Which might not be what everyone is after, some people would happily rock a neon green gloss all day long. It's not my scene though. :D

I wore this pink a lot over the summer. Bright and kicky, looked nice with a tan.

If you're looking for a low maintence, glossy little kick, that's easy to carry in any pocket or bag that you've got, you'll like these. The biggest critique I see of these is that they're not long lasting - if you're looking for long lasting...keep looking, you haven't found it.

A few swatches;

On the inside of my arm:

Each color, of course, is next to it's respective swatch on my arm, of course. Little bit of pigment - some, not a lot.

Swatches of me in each respective balm. In a moment of girlish insecurity, I had planned to crop these pictures - apparently, new face wash, new primer, new foundation and new makeup brushes make your makeup get weird. Who knew, amirite? But turns out, crops...magnify things. And far away bad things are less awful than close up bad things, as a general rule. See what I mean? Learning new things about blogging every week!

A collage, so I'm not boring you with piles of pictures I've already confessed to not liking. And I'm sure they're just fine, we all know full well we're our own worst critics, but just the same.

At any rate, that's me, from left to right, in Minty Sheer, Pink Shock, and Oh! Orange! Each tinted, glossy, nice. Wears well, but not for a long time - which most of their critics are quick to point out. You know what I think I might like most about these? Coming it at an average price point of $3, they're great for when you need that "new makeup" fix, or your look needs a little pick me up, but don't have a lot of money to spend. Maybe that's part of the friendship we've developed. 

Some stores are closing out their Electro colors, so if you're intrigued enough to try any of these for yourself, you might want to act fast!

The eyeshadow, by the by, is from the Wet N Wild "Comfort Zone" 8 pan shadow kit, which is so awesome, it practically deserves a blog of it's very own.

Like Maybelline? Me too! I talk about it all the time!

Wet N Wild ... Thursday?

Two weeks or so ago now, I posted several nail polish swatches from the Wet N Wild Megalast line of nail polish swatches. I had a little bit of difficulty photographing them, but they looked good on my laptop, and I published them. (See them here.)

I checked out the blog on the computers at the library yesterday, and long story short, I came straight home and reshot all the pictures!

Wet N Wild's nail polishes are free of toluene, pthalate and formaldehyde. They have a wide brush (you can do your whole nail in about three strokes!), and go on smooth and easy. The colors, or the ones I've got experience with thus far anyway, come out really true to what you see in the bottle - so I know that I'm pretty pale, and I'm swatching the polishes on a white nail wheel, but they all come out looking true to the bottle every time.

Wet N Wild promises you five days of chip free color, and that's pretty universally what you get. You might get six if you're lucky, but that's about it. Although of course, having said that, I don't have a job where I use my hands a lot. If you do, you may not get five.

I've gotten the most comments about "Under Your Spell", a nice brownish red with a light glitter running through it. Although I think Heatwave - a bright summery orange - may be my favorite so far.

"Haze of Love", a really pretty deep mauve. When I looked at it, I immediately thought of "Marsala", which was just named Color of the Year (oh yeah, that's a thing...), which makes this color so on trend right now, that it's out of control. If you don't own this, you need it. Sephora is selling Marsala nail colors for between $10 and $20 a bottle. Wet N Wild has your back for $2. Yes! Do this!

"Heatwave", a straight up, no foolin', orange. If you're one who always wants your colors to be seasonally on point, Heatwave isn't your guy now, but remember him come summer! You'll want this one!

"On A Trip", a fantastic, kicky lavender. No glitter, no foolin'. I can see this one being super fun like, in the Spring when you're out hunting for Easter eggs, right?

"Through The Grapevine", a deeper purple. Not as much red to it as "Haze of Love", more of a true purple. It's not quite a marsala, but it's probably close enough that you could fake it. 

"Under Your Spell", a nice red-brown, that has a slight bit of fine glitter running through it. This is the one that I get the most comments on when people see it. I don't know that I think it's the most unique one of the group (I think that honor probably goes to Heatwave, at least so far), but it's quite the eye catcher!

I appreciate the care that Wet N Wild puts in to their packaging. It's an inexpensive line, but their packaging doesn't look it. Look at this;

You could see each of these bottles turn up at any nail salon, and you wouldn't question it. You want a splurge feeling, on a didn't splurge budget? Wet N Wild is your brand!

(Bottles are pictured in order; Haze of Love, Heatwave, On A Trip, Through The Grapevine, Under Your Spell. Unfortunately, the bottle pictures were not reshot)