BIG OL' HIGH END FOUNDATION REVIEW

I have obtained a rather large number of high end foundations in the last few months. This works quite well for me as, like many of you I'm sure, I love testing out new foundations. There's something immensely satisfying about the search for the perfect foundation. Finding the one foundation to rule them all, the one foundation to find them, the one foundation to bring them all and in the darkness bind them... yeah, that foundation. So anyways, I've tried out a lot of foundations and I wanted to give you a summary of my thoughts.

TOP 5 BLEMISH CONCEALERS

If there's one thing I'm good at, it's concealing with a spotty face. I've dealt with breakouts on and off since high school (though I'm lucky that my skin is in much better condition these days) and, although it's been frustrating, the silver lining is that I've had loads of first hand experience testing out different techniques for covering blemishes, as well as testing out different concealers. After trying out a butt ton, I'm happy to say that I've found a clear top five.

COULD IT BE LOVE? THE GREATEST FOUNDATION BRUSH

IMATS came to Vancouver a few weeks ago. Seeing as I have next to no makeup (crowd throws vegetables at my head), I felt I should pick up some more. I'm full of good jokes. I circled around the convention and when I saw the line for Morphe I decided I wanted no part in the madness (think 3 hour waits). Instead I headed over to Royal & Langnickel where I felt far more at home with the common folk.

WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS LIPSTICK?

Okily dokily, so I picked up the Sephora Collection Colour Lip Last Lipstick in Blooming Rose a few weeks ago and it straight up blew my mind. It is cray cray good. And I don't use the term cray cray lightly... because it's disgusting. Every time I wear this bad boy I get people asking me what's on my lips and lemme tell you why.

NARS VELVET MATTE SKIN TINT

A few months ago the NARS Velvet Matte Skin Tint launched. I've seen some mixed reviews on this guy, but for the most part people seem to be giving it a thumbs up. I've tried it out on loads of clients at Sephora so I've got a good idea of the look of the initial application, however I wanted to see how it lasted throughout the day. You can imagine I was pleased when I received this in gratis so I could give it a proper go. So what's the foundation like? What's the good and what's the bad? Here we go.

THE PERFECT MOISTURIZER FOR OILY SKIN

I found it. It has been found. Alert the townspeople. The perfect daytime moisturizer for oily skin now resides in my cupboards. I have been on the hunt for this product for a long time now and, let me tell you, it has been a challenge. The issue with finding a good moisturizer for oily skin is that you're usually either left feeling greasy or you're felt feeling un-hydrated. I finally feel like I've found a product that strikes the right balance.

THE CONCEALER RUNDOWN

After a short interlude, we return to our regular programming. I.e. back to the rundown series. We've covered bronzers and highlighters. So what's next, you ask? Pretend like you asked. Concealers! I'm bizarrely a total concealer nutcase. They are one of my all time favorite makeup products because I truly believe a good concealer can massively raise your confidence level. I've tried a fair few in my many wise and humble years, so please allow me to have a chat. Then you shun me.

THE HIGHLIGHTER RUNDOWN

I've been meaning to make a mini-series for a while now. I thought it might be nice to pick a category of product – eyeliners, highlighters, foundations, etc – and give you a rundown of my experience with each one. I already covered bronzers in the last post and today we're moving onto highlighters. I hope you guys like this idea and if there's any category you're especially interested in hearing about, please let me know!

THE BRONZER RUNDOWN

You know when you look at your makeup stash and you think sweet Jesus how did I end up with so many bronzers? No? Probably just me. I'll check myself into rehab after I'm done typing this up. Bronzer is a staple product for me. I wear it almost every day and the days that I don't I usually regret it when I catch the ghost staring back at me in the mirror. Because it's such a staple product, I find myself dabbling in new bronzers quite often, trying to find the perfect one. After rifling through my drawers I've discovered that I've accumulated over a dozen. Yikers. I decided now would be a good time to give you a rundown of each one before things get any more out of hand.

CLEANSER REVIEW GALORE

Cleansers are one of the skincare products I like to play around with most. My treatments are usually pretty boring because I'm on prescriptions and I don't want to mess around with them. But cleansers... well that's when I'm like a college girl making out with another collage girl at a frat party while a bunch of dudes watch... experimental. Inappropro? I've had the pleasure of trying out a load of new cleansers in the past few months and I want to give you guys the run down. Come, get experimental with me. Giggity.

THE FOREO LUNA MINI

You know you work at Sephora when this conversation happens.

Me: Man, I wish I had a Luna.
Co-worker: Oh, I have one. You can have it. I don't want it.
Me: What? No, that's crazy.
Co-worker: No really. I don't care.
Me: Okay, well I'm baking you some cookies.
Co-worker: Okay.

THE TOO FACED CHOCOLATE BAR EYE PALETTE

It was becoming abundantly clear that I didn't exactly have a large selection of eye shadows to create looks with for work. So I made the decision that I was going to invest in a palette. At first I thought that the Urban Decay Naked 3 would be the one. I love the tones in it, however when I thought about it, I reckoned I could get a lot more variety out of the Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette. One birthday celebration later, it became mine. So, thoughts and feelings....

PROJECT: TRY ALL THE FOUNDATIONS

I've been working on a little project of late. A project I like to call “try all the foundations.” Seeing as I now have access to almost every high end foundation on the market, I figured, why not take advantage? Each day I take home a sample of a foundation and the next day I put it to the test. I'm only part way through my trial, but if you guys like what I'm doing I'll do a part two and maybe even a part three. I've got nine foundations to run you through now. A little background on my skin: it's combination (quite oily through the t-zone), sensitive, I get some breakouts, a little bit of flaky skin from retinol use and bit of redness throughout my cheeks.

GO BOLD OR GO HOME: TRAIN BLEU

I have been lusting after the NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil in Train Bleu for years now. I never went for it before because I lived on an island where men seem never to have heard of makeup. That's all good and well, but when you decide to actually wear lipstick and you receive about twenty comments in one day saying “huh, you're wearing lipstick,” well, you just kind of give up. However, my recent move into the city warranted a celebration of makeup. And thus, Train Bleu finally became mine.

THE NEW H&M BEAUTY LINE

I sensed some curiosity in the force. I just watched the new Star Wars trailer and I am literally wetting myself with excitement. But that has nothing to do with what I'm talking about today. I'm talking about the curiosity surrounding the new H&M beauty line. I've seen surprisingly little info on the new launch and I wanted to test out a few pieces and give you lovely people the low down.

SHU UEMURA ULTIMATE REMEDY HAIR MASQUE

I've mentioned the Shu Uemura Ultimate Remedy Hair Masque a few times before, but I've never given it the proper ego tickling that it deserves. Today is the day that it gets the royal treatment because this is without a doubt the most glorious product ever to have touched my hair.

EMBRYOLISSE LAIT CREME CONCENTRE

I want to start today by apologizing to you guys. The past month has been total chaos. We've moved house and still haven't yet managed to unpack. I feel like I have so much stuff I have to get done and at the same time I'm trying to enjoy the last of the short summers that we get here. As a consequence I haven't had the time and energy that I would like to have had to put into Bloomin' Rouge. I know everybody says "you do you, post as much or little as you like." But it's important to me to be regularly producing fresh content for you guys. I'm sorry that I haven't been doing that. It will probably be a few more weeks of madness and then I should be back in the swing of things.

DANIEL WELLINGTON CLASSIC SHEFFIELD

A short while ago Daniel Wellington approached me and asked if I'd be interested in doing a post on one of their watches. I've been fairly obsessed with those watches for a good solid year. Liiiikkke I ogle pictures of them on Pinterest more often than I ogled the cast of Supernatural back in the day. So you can imagine I was happy to accept their offer. They gave me the option to pick any watch and, surprise surprise, I chose the *Classic Sheffield Watch in Rose Gold.

A HUGE HIT AND A LITTLE MISS

I've been feeling like my lashes have been looking a little less than fantabulous lately. To be fair, MAC Extended Play has done me quite well for the past few months. It brings the length and separation and it doesn't smudge in the slightest. However, it does absolutely nothing in terms of volume and if I'm going to bring the DRAMA (betch please, lashes 4 dayz drama) Imma need some volume. So, as I've said so many times before, the hunt was on! The game was afoot.

THE DO IT ALL BRUSHES

Brushes are to makeup as fancy language is to a pretentious douchebag. Essential, compulsory, pivotal, obligatory. Take your pick. Trololol. But in all seriousness, brushes are super important to me. It's quite amazing what a difference a good brush can make. It can completely change the way a product works. For that reason I love testing the waters and I've found three face brushes that I reckon are quite exceptional in all that they can do.