A few bits: Lily Lolo Minerals, Rimmel Shake Up Pink Lipstick

I love mineral make up, and buy mine from English mineral make up company Lily Lolo. So far I only have mineral foundation & concealer from them and wanted to try out a bronzer and blusher.

• I ordered South Beach which is a light matte bronzer and Clementine blusher which is a peachy-pink.

South Beach Bronzer £12

Clementine Blusher £7

Swatch:

• A sample of Star Dust shimmer powder, which is a mineral highlighter. Samples are £1.25 each

• Another sample of Nude Cover Up, which is a concealer one shade darker than the one I am using at the moment, as when I go on holiday I will be needing a slightly darker shade

• I also got a sample of Lily Lolo's Blondie foundation, which is also the next shade up from the foudation I normally use

Star Dust Shimmer Powder  (left) Blondie Foundation  (right) Nude Cover Up  (bottom)

I also thought I would show you the Rimmel Shake Up Pink Lipstick I mentioned in my last post!

With full-on colour...

...and sheered down for a natural pink lip

I really like this lipstick and will be wearing it a lot!

Lowdown on Mineral Make Up!

Mineral make up has become a big thing over the past couple of years, and almost every cosmetic brand has their own variation. I bought my first mineral foundation from a UK based mineral make up company, Lily Lolo. I spent a long time researching mineral make up brands and started to learn about why mineral make up is so good. 

So what's all the fuss about mineral foundation? Well, it's free from harsh chemicals, nano particles, parabens, bismuth oxychloride, talc, synthetic dyes, fillers, fragrance and preservatives. All these ingredients are bad for your skin, blocking pores and basically doing your skin damage. The ingredients in the Lily Lolo foundation are Mica, Zinc Oxide, Titanium Dioxide, Iron Oxides, Ultramarine Blue. These mineral ingredients are actually said to be good for your skin, which I agree with as the condition of my skin has improved so much.

Foundation in Porcelain.

As soon as I started using the mineral foundation I saw a dramatic improvement in my skin, I had bad break outs which I didn't know at the time were due to the foundation and concealers I was previously using (Revlon Colourstay). Now my skin looks good without make up on! Before I actually needed foundation because my skin was so bad.

Ingredients of the foundation- excuse the ripped sticker!

The other great thing about mineral make is that it has an SPF and is water resistant! It doesn't feel like you have anything on your skin at all, and looks so natural, yet your face looks flawless. It only takes a minute to apply, you could apply it without a mirror it's so easy.

I should warn you about the brands out there who call their products ''mineral'' but all they are is a powder foundation, with all the harsh chemicals and bad ingredients in. Examples of this are the MAC ''mineral'' powder foundations, Maybelline ''mineral'' foundation, Revlon's version...Collection 2000 do one too... there are many more out there!

Because I'm so pale I could never find a foundation to be pale enough for me, and I was always left with an orangey tinge- not a good look! With the Lily Lolo foundation in porcelain (lightest shade!) I don't get that at all. This will be because the foundation doesn't oxidise like a liquid foundation, as it doesn't have the ingredients which cause a product to oxidise. Lily Lolo also have a good number of foundation shades, on the high street some companies only have 6 shades sometimes.


I also bought two concealers, Blush Away which is a green powder to combat redness, and Blondie Cover Up which is a pale skin colour. I use these on blemishes and just like the foundation, they're fantastic. Like all mineral make up, they're water resistant and have an SPF. Blondie Cover Up ingredients: Kaolin, Titanium Dioxide, Zinc Oxide, Iron Oxides. Blush Away ingredients: Mica, Titanium Dioxide, Iron Oxides, Ultramarine Blue.

Blush Away Concealer- there is so much concealer in the pots that there is always a load above the sifter!

Mineral make up should only contain these ingredients...

Blondie Cover Up Concealer

I have had these products nearly a year now, and I still have about 80% of the concealers left, and I am nearly coming to the end of my foundation. What I love about these products is they're so great and the prices are too, because I used to pay about £10 every couple of months for a new bottle of foundation, I also went through a stage of using a Clinique foundation which was just over £21 pounds. The mineral foundation is £12, and the concealers are £7. I am extremely happy with this as they have lasted really well, and they are the best foundation and concealers I have ever found.
You can also send off for samples to try if you aren't sure which shade you are. They're something like 75p!

How I got rid of my bad skin...by changing to mineral foundation

Mineral make up has become extremely popular over the past couple of years, with almost every cosmetic brand selling their own variation. I only started noticing this just under a year ago- if only I had discovered it sooner...

I am one of the 80% of teens that suffers from acne. I would usually just get the occasional break out but last year I started to suffer from more severe break outs. A couple of visits to and from the doctor with different creams, gels & tablets showed only a tiny bit of improvement, and I still wasn't happy. I went back to my doctor again a was put on the pill along with Acnecide gel. This combination seemed to help a lot but now I was left dealing with what I didn't know at the time was cosmetic acne.

I was using the best foundation that I found worked for me- Revlon Colourstay. At the time all I wanted was my foundation to cover up my hideous skin as much as possible. To be seen with no foundation on was my worse nightmare, only in the company of close family did I feel comfortable in taking off the mask. It hadn't occurred to me that I was wearing way too much make up, and more importantly making my skin worse. At the time I was pretty damn obsessed with my skin. It would always be on my mind, was forever googling & youtubing for reviews and tutorials on how to apply the Revlon Colourstay, acne remedies, how to get rid of acne etc etc.

It was through all that googling and youtubing that I discovered mineral make up. I started to read how it was good for your skin, as it didn't have the harsh chemicals or bad unnessecary ingredients that other foundations have which cause reactions in the skin. I read how people said they were finding their skin to be improving as they use it, and their acne actually clearing up. 

After reading this I had to try it. I settled for English brand, Lily Lolo and ordered a sample of their foundation and was extremely pleased to see that the colour was pale enough for me! All the foundations I had used before always turned slightly orange...

I went back online and ordered a full size foundation and a concealer- one that was green (yes, green!) to cancel out any redness in the skin, ie. red blemishes. Later on I went on to buy the regular concealer, again light enough for me- hurrah!

It took a bit of getting used to using mineral powders, at first I was using too much so I looked like a powdery ghost, but I quickly found that a little went a long way. At this point I was using the mineral foundation, but using it with a liquid concealer to cover up all my spots. Which was why I didn't see a proper improvement of my skin until I realised the liquid concealers were actually the cause of my break outs.

Now I love my all-mineral foundation routine, I don't have to wait for any foundation to dry like with a liquid, or feel like I'm wearing a heavy mask. My skin looks so beautiful now because they blend into the skin so well, making it look glowing and amazing but not like you have any make up on! It feels good to know that I'm putting something onto my skin which isn't doing it any damage. Now I have no acne at all, and only get the odd spot as your average teenager does, and I can definately deal with that. 

I found a skin care routine was also crucial in getting rid of my cosmetic acne. I didn't have a proper skin care routine at that time, and was using harsh products on my skin, causing more spots. Now I exfoliate with St. Ives facial scrub every morning before applying my hypo-allergenic moisturiser by No7 and then if I'm wearing make up that day, a face primer to help with my oily skin. At night I use Simple face wash, my acnecide gel and then my Boots' night moisturiser for sensitive skin. This routine along with my mineral routine helps keep my skin so healthy. Before my skin actually needed a foundation as I wasn't letting it breathe and was ridden with constant break outs, now my skin looks great with or without make up on.