5. L'occitane Immortelle Brightening Moisturiser - £48 from here.
There's a fine line between brightening/illuminating face products and either 'glitter' or 'face dunked in grease'. This moisturiser gets the effect absolutely perfect. Fine lines become invisible, pigmentation not so noticeable & that radiance is visible underneath your foundation. Heck, I even wore this WITHOUT any foundation as my skin looked so good! It's hard to explain as the look on skin isn't a sheen or shine, but looks like being under flattering light. I received this from The Beauty Bible to try out & review & I might never have looked to L'occitane for skincare otherwise. I used up the entire jar & intend to put it on my Birthday Gift List as I know I'd use it again & again. Smells beautiful too.
4. Boots No.7 Lift & Luminate Day & Night serums - £24.95 from here.
Used in conjunction with the L'occitane moisturiser mentioned above or on its own, the Lift & Luminate Day serum is FANTASTIC. It's another product that gets the illumination effect just right. The downside is that the night serum is included too. I really didn't feel significant benefits from it, but I'd buy the day one by the bucketload! This is another product I was sent to try for the new Beauty Bible anti-ageing edition, but I was already familiar with it. There was something about having to look closely & scrutinise a product for review that made me realise just how fab this day serum is. Now if only Boots would sell it singly & in larger quantities.
3. Bobbi Brown Bronzing Powder - £27 from here.
I have a fat, round face. Always have had, yet contouring remained a mystery to me. I'd tried bronzing powders before of course, but the effect on me can be summed up by the word 'grubby'. Not the sweeping, chiselled cheekbones & razor sharp jawline for me, oh no! UNTIL I bought this. My shade is Golden Light and it looks NATURAL. I actually discovered this when I used the Chat feature on the Bobbi Brown website. I had such a great conversation with advice & tips & no hard sell, that I ordered both this & the Bobbi Brown bronzer brush too. My new-found confidence served me well & I can now look as sculpted as I like (which isn't, in fairness, incredibly so; just less moon-faced). Ladies, I can't impress on you enough that The Right Tool For The Job makes a staggering difference so invest in the brush too!
2. Laura Geller Balance & Brighten foundation - £28.04 with brush here.
Technically this wasn't a new discovery for me in 2013, but I DID find myself using it more & more. I'll be honest with you, I can't be done with endless blending when it comes to foundation. I like some liquid foundations; some are outstanding, but, when it comes to everyday Getting My Face On, this is what I use. My colour is Fair &, as you can see from the above image, 'fair' covers a few hues! This is what makes this foundation so easy; it's VERY forgiving when it comes to skin shade. Despite being a powder (which I apply with the Real Techniques Buffing Brush - buy here as part of the Core Collection) it blends into the skin like a liquid leaving your skin natural looking yet with medium coverage. Any efforts you've gone to to illuminate your skin aren't lost either as this looks like your real skin - just BETTER. I know it might seem a bit 'old lady' to buy make-up from QVC, but they really do have some gems on there! This is one of them.
1. Decleor Hydra Floral BB Cream - £23.29 from here
BB Creams, they're SO 2012 right? Wrong. My ears pricked up when skincare supremos Decleor announced they were launching their own. What could they bring to the BB market that nobody else could? I was incredibly lucky enough to WIN the Hydra Floral collection including this BB cream last year so I got to find out. Now I've used BB Creams before; many brands. Most require some sort of foundation over the top when your skin's as old as mine, & I felt this pretty much defeated the entire objective of using a BB cream. Surely you just slap it on a cleansed face & there's your skincare needs & foundation DONE. Well that wasn't the case for me until now. There's more pigment in this Decleor BB so it's definitely more than a tinted moisturiser. It also skilfully manages to avoid BB uber-shine which lesser brands deem 'illuminating'. With this my skin feels moisturised, balanced, smoothed, even-toned & it LOOKS like it too. Pigmentation is diffused, fine lines & pores minimised, yet it still looks like skin - just GREAT skin! Initially this was released in one shade only, but even that colour-matched my fair skintone very well. Now you can get in 3 shade choices & I've found the Fair shade is perfect for my Winter skin. As if all of that wasn't good enough, it smells DIVINE too.
I hope this Face Top 5 is helpful to you & a great introduction to what I'm hoping to achieve with this Blog; no-nonsense, honest tips & advice for us over-40s gals who haven't given up the ghost of glamour just yet!
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