Flower Beauty BB Cream

One of the biggest drags that the summer brings is the constant shifting of your skin tone. I find it so frustrating to fall in love with a formula of a base product only to have it make you look ghostly in a few short weeks. This summer I have really made it a point to cut down on my screen time and increase my outdoor time, hence the shortage of blogging recently. With this, my skin has finally seen the sun, and I am no longer the palest of the pale. I ran out to the drugstore to find a bandaid for my skin tone issue.

Flower Beauty BB Cream in BB2 – $12.98 CAD

I originally heard about this BB Cream from Leighann Says on YouTube. I remembered her saying that she really liked this BB Cream, and I also happen to like lighter coverage base products, so I figured I’d give it a go. I settled on the shade BB 2, mostly because I knew BB 1 would probably be my year round fit, and the shade 3 looked crazy dark. I got lucky and it seems to be a really good match for me. I’ve been using this BB Cream as my every day base for a good couple of months now, so I feel as though I can give it a pretty good review.

The packaging is super cute and very functional. I love Flower Beauty’s packaging, and the line in general is super great. This BB Cream has an awesome consistency, it’s quite thick which I think helps out in the coverage department. I apply the BB Cream with a beauty blender, and it comes to a light coverage.

I don’t find this product to be very buildable. Once you have applied one layer that’s kind of all you can get without things looking cakey. I also find that this product sets up and dries pretty quickly, so I like to work in one section at a time. This doesn’t really bother me because I think the natural finish is worth the little bit of hassle. I’ve been really impressed with the wear time on this, it doesn’t break up and get weird, and it tends to keep my skin looking matte for a pretty long time. The only places where oil breaks through is on my nose.

As you can see, this BB cream mostly evens out my skin tone. You can still see some freckles through the product which is nice for summer. The only thing I can think to improve on is adding some sort of SPF into the formula. It is marketed as a BB Cream, and to be honest I’m not really clear on what this claims to do. As a tinted moisturizer, however, I do really love this, and will continue to use up for the rest of the summer and beyond.

Talk soon,

Xx Brianna

Live Clean Oil

Ok ok, I’m a blogger failure. Just know I acknowledge my recent absences from blogging and I feel a pang on guilt every time I think about it. Things have been crazy busy for me, and I think the next few weeks will be sort of the same, but coming up I’m moving into a full time position at a job, so some semblance of a schedule will start to form in my world, making blogging time an easier fit. Things get hard when you work multiple jobs and have recreational spots and significant others.

To get back into the groove of things, I wanted to talk about a product that I really have been enjoying using.

Live Clean Professional Miracle Nutrition Oil – $9.99 CAD

I super randomly picked up this oil while on a shopping trip to the Real Canadian Superstore. At the time I didn’t even know that Live Clean had come out with a ‘professional’ line, but I was excited to see a hair treatment at a very affordable price. The dual coloured oil really suckered me into the purchase. It’s just so pretty! The packaging is nice and functional for the product, the pump ensures that you don’t end up getting oil all over the place, or all over the bottle.

When you shake up the bottle, the oil turns into a gorgeous orange shade. About a pump and a half is enough to coat the mid to end lengths of my hair. I’ve even used this on my scalp when I was desperate for a little TLC. This is a pre-shower treatment, meaning you coat your hair with the oil, throw it up in a bun, and let it soak in for about 10 minutes before you shampoo it out. This oil is awesome, it’s not super slippery, and it washes out really nicely. And I’d just like to take a moment and talk about the scent. OH MY GOSH the scent is so amazing. It smells really light, kind of fruity, and kind of floral as well. It smells so good, and if you’re careful to not douse your hair in shampoo the scent sticks around.

I’ve found that with this treatment, I can eliminate any need for a hair conditioner. I like to put this in my hair, then shampoo it out and be on my way. The oil washes out really nicely and I haven’t found it to leave my hair feeling greasy or weighed down, which is a huge bonus. I’ve tried a few other products from the professional line from Live Clean and I’m really liking what I’m seeing.

Talk soon,

Xx Brianna

Elf Blush Palette

Today’s post is a fun one. Blush is by far the most fun cosmetic to buy (in my little world, at least). And what’s more fun than a blush palette with 4 gorgeous blushes?! I was doing the usual spending an hour in the Real Canadian Superstore beauty section looking at their newly re-vamped brand list. The world has answered my hopes and dreams and FINALLY started carrying Milani and Wet n Wild, and a bigger ELF section. I picked up the ELF blush palette after seeing some buzz on the internet.

ELF Studio Blush Palette in Light – $8.00 CAD

Your eyes are not betraying you, that’s a blush palette that contains 4 blushes for only 8 bucks. Here in Canada we get royally screwed with dollar conversions. When our dollar is awesome things are still more expensive, when our dollar is the pits (like right now) things are even more expensive. Americans have it good, that’s all I’ll say. Anyways, tangent aside, 4 blushes for 8 dollars is still a great deal.

The palette contains 4 blushes: a cool toned bright matte pink, a warm terracotta matte brown, a warm matte pink, and a shimmery coral. The blush palette is a pretty decent size with a very nice sized mirror in the lid. What’s really cool about this palette is that each pan pops out, so you can mix and match with the other ELF palettes (foundation palette, contouring palette, etc). Each pan is very decently sized, and pops in and out pretty easily from the back. You could even stick on a magnet and add these blushes to a z-palette.

Texture wise, these blushes are really nice. Surprisingly nice. They’re soft, but not too soft, and don’t kick up any fall out when you tap your brush into the product. They’re just that perfect consistency where they give you nice colour pay off, but you don’t have to be insanely careful about applying them. The lasting power is also really lovely. I’ve applied each of these blushes to bare cheeks (unpowdered) and they’ve lasted me all day without any touch ups.

Swatched above are the blushes in clockwise order. You can see the first 3 shades which are all matte have really awesome pigmentation. The last one that has some shimmer particles running through it is the least pigmented of the 4, but it’s still a really gorgeous colour. Not going to lie I kept staring at that brown shade and thinking there’s no way that’s going on my cheeks. It runs really warm, I compared it to all my bronzers and it was significantly more warm toned, but I gave it a shot and I was very pleasantly surprised. Sometimes you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone, you know?

Below are photos of me wearing each blush, I’ve photographed them in the same order as the swatches above. (If you’re wondering why my hair looks jacked up in these photos, read here).

I had to colour correct the last photo just a smidge as the sun was straight BEAMING into my room and it was crazy orange, but the colour of the blush shows true. Overall I’m really loving this palette, especially for summer. I find myself reaching for it all the time, and I’m very very curious about the contouring palette.

Talk soon,

Xx Brianna