Top 3 | Highlighters Feat. Benefit, MAC & Sleek

1. Benefit Watt's Up! - £24.50

2. MAC Mineralise Skinfinish in Lightscapade - £22

3. 3. Sleek Face Contouring Kit in 'Light' - £6.49

I love highlighters. I love how they can make you look like you just have that 'inner glow' and how they make you look fresh and radiant. I have three favourite highlighters each best for different purposes. I thought I'd share them with you to see if you can discover some new favourites. It was incredibly hard to swatch these, especially the MAC one as it's quite similar to my skintone. Hopefully you can see them well enough.

1. Benefit Watt's Up! - £24.50
I have already got a more in depth review of this here. I love this highlighter, especially in the summer. The champagne colour helps add a golden glow to the cheeks and looks great paired with bronzer. It has the best colour pay off of any highlighter I've used and the shimmer is gorgeous. It is more noticeable on the skin than some highlighters, but that's why I like it so much. It's a cream to powder formula, so easy to blend into the skin for a flawless application.

2. MAC Mineralise Skinfinish in 'Lightscapade' -£22
I don't think there's much that needs to be said about this one. Mac's Mineralise Skinfinishes are very well known. I only own one of them, in Lightscapade, which is described as a 'soft candelight beige'. On me it's quite similar to my skin colour so really blends into my skin and makes the highlight look more natural. You can use as little or as much as you want in order to get the look you want. It's a powder highlighter and easy to apply to the face with a powder brush. The powder is finely milled so won't make your face look cakey and won't highlight pores. The MSFs are available in a range of shades, with new limited editions ones constantly being released.

3. Sleek Face Contour Kit in 'Light' - £6.49
This is my most recent addition and is definitely the cheapest product shown here. It only costs £6.49 but you also get a good contour shade with that. I really like this higlighter. In the swatch you can see it's similar to the MAC higlighter, but a bit more yellow toned and the shimmer particles are much more noticeable. This is a great highlighter when I want a bit more of an obvious higlighter (it's never over the top though).

Those are my top 3 highlighters at the moment, but I'd like to try more. If you have any recommendations, let me know!

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Liz Earle Sheer Skin Tint Swatch and Comparison | 01 Bare

Hey guys, as you may know I have incredibly pale skin and am always on the look out to find the perfect foundation to suit my skin colour. On my blog I have posted swatches of pale foundations here and here, and have more foundations to swatch today.

Today, I have swatched the shade '01 Bare' from the Liz Earle Sheer Skin Tint range. This is the palest colour that Liz Earle currently stock.

Left to Right:

Liz Earle Sheer Skin Tint in Bare 01, Bourjois Healthy Mix Serum in 51, Urban Decay Naked Skin in 0.5, Illamasqua Skin Base in 2.0, L'oreal Infallible Foundation in 15 Porcelain, Bobbi Brown Foundation Stick in 00 Alabaster, Illasmasqua Rich Liquid in #115

The foundation shade that the Liz Earle Sheer Skin Tint is most similar to is the Bourjois Healthy Mix Serum. The Liz Earle is slightly lighter and a tad more yellow based. The Liz Earle definitely has yellow undertones rather than pink undertones, which are obvious when compared to a pink based foundation such as the Urban Decay one.

The Liz Earle is slightly too dark for me to wear as I do have pale skin but if you are slightly darker than my skin colour I can see this working. If you are very fair though, you may have to do some blending if you want to wear this.

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Why It's Ok to be Pale

I''m incredibly pale. It's a fact, from a young age I've constantly been asked 'Why are you so pale?' 'Are you ill?' or even 'Are you a vampire?'. I used to hate my pale skin and try to cover it up by fake tanning or using darker foundation (and blending it down to the neck). However, I have recently begun to embrace my pale skin for what it is. And I hope that I can show some of your other pale people out there, why you should too.

Before I start this post, I would like to say that I am in no way against tanned skin (natural or fake). I myself love the look of glowing tanned skin, and have fake tanned before. However, I feel that around this time of year, people who are naturally very pale sometimes feel down about their natural skin colour. If you are anything like me, you won't tan naturally in the sun (I don't really burn either so that's a plus) and fake tan doesn't look quite right on you because 1. everyone can tell that its fake as you are so pale 2. all your makeup is suited to pale skin and doesn't look quite right and 3. You look so different you don't look like 'you' anymore.

This post therefore is in no way a bashing of tanned skin, I am personally jealous of those who have such amazing skin and wish I could achieve the same. However, this post is about a celebration of pale skin and should hopefully help people feel like its ok if they want to show off their pale skin in the summer.

Pale Skin is timeless. In Victorian times, pale skin used to be the envied skintone and considered something to aspire to. The logic behind this was that the paler a woman's skin was, the less time she spent outside working. So those with paler skin were more likely to be from money and not need to work. While this logic doesn't exactly apply today, it shows that pale skin is a classic, timeless look. Also, think of how beautiful the actresses look in period dramas. They all have pale skin.

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Pale skin IS sexy. I've often heard comments that paleskin can't be sexy and only those with a tan  can be. To all those people, I dare you to look at these images and still say that:

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Look how many pale celebrities there are that women are envious of? There are many celebrities who are known for their pale skin and who embrace it, and they are beautiful.

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I hope that this had showed how beautiful pale skin is, and it should not be something that is dismissed as 'sickly looking' nor should people ever be told 'you need to get a tan'. Everyone should love their natural skin colour.

If you have pale skin let me know if you embrace yours and how, if you have any reasons why you should love being pale, let me know in the comments!

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Urban Decay Naked Skin Liquid Foundation Review | Shade 0.5

I've had this foundation for a while now and it is a product I am currently loving. I've been using this for a couple weeks now to make sure I gave it a proper try before reviewing it.

Shade:
The Shade I have is the palest in 0.5 which is for pink undertones. I don't actually have pink undertones but I found that although this was pink it wasn't so pink that it looked unnatural on my skin tone. To be honest, this shade is too dark for me and I do have to blend it down onto my neck, however once blended I think it does look natural on my skin and it isn't too dark that I can't get away with it. I am pretty pale, but if you are even paler than me (paler than #115 in Illamasqua type of pale) this will not be a good match for you.

Coverage:
The coverage of this is definitely buildable. Depending on the brush and the method used I've found this can be quite a light coverage to a medium/full coverage. I have found that I always need concealer on any blemishes after using this, but it definitely covers up any redness I may have. This isn't going to be super high coverage so if you do have very problematic skin, this may not be suitable. One of my favourite things about this foundation has to be the finish it leaves on your skin. Once on, I find that this actually does look like skin (like the name suggests) and does leave a natural looking finish. According to Urban Decay it leaves a 'demi-matte' finish. On me however, I find it leaves a more dewy finish. However, I have had a more matte finish with it before, but the combination of products I use to hydrate my dry skin (and the fact I don't powder) means that this looks more dewy.


Consistency:
As you can see in the photos this has a runny finish and is quite thin. From this you would think that the coverage would be very sheer but it's not. I really like the texture as it means that it blends into the skin really well and that a little can go a long way.


Packaging: 
I really like the packaging on this. It isn't the most luxurious of packaging (the bottle is plastic, not glass) so if you like your foundation bottles to look expensive this isn't going to float your boat. The reason I like the packaging so much is partly because its lightweight and easy to travel with, but also because of the pump. Most foundations come with a pump and this makes the product easier to dispense, however some have better pumps than others. This has a really good pump which gives you a lot of control, meaning you can dispense very small amounts and much larger amounts depending on the pressure you apply. This helps minimise the amount of wasted product.

The Pump Applicator

Lasting Power:
I have very very dry skin and don't tend to produce much oil. However, I've found that the lasting power of this foundation completely depends on what I use with it. A lot of reviews have said that the lasting power on this foundation isn't great, and UD don't make any claims that it should. Without using a primer or powder I found that after 5 hours this has begun to start fading on my nose. With a primer and powder I did find that it lasted longer but after about 8+ hours the dry patches around my nose and mouth had become more accentuated. My favourite way to wear this is with no primer/powder (as they are drying on my skin) and to use Urban Decay Dew Me Makeup Setting Spray. This is great for my skin type as it hydrates the skin, but it also helps keep the foundation on for much longer. If you do have problems with the lasting power on this I would definitely recommend this product, they also sell versions for oily skin and normal skin.

Scent:
This does have a noticeable scent to it, but I find you can't detect the scent when the product is on your face.

Pricing and Avaliability:
Urban Decay Naked Skin Foundation is price £27.00 and is avaliable from Debenhams.

Overall, I really like this foundation and how it looks on my skin. If it was a tad paler it would be perfect. I also have the brush which Urban Decay marketed with this foundation which I also love and will be reviewing soon.

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