Tom Ford's Unabashed Eye and Cheek Palette on darker skin.

My first ever Tom Ford beauty purchase comes in the form of this limited edition eye and cheek palette, it contains 3 eyeshadows, a blusher and highlighter/bronzer. I figured it was a great way to sample a few different things from the brand in one go, and with House of Fraser offering 10% off with an additional £5 off code that I had, reducing the high end price of £68, I justified this purchase to myself. Plus I had been searching high and low for swatches on a darker skin tone, with very little success, so here they are.

As this palette is limited edition I wanted to get this post up as soon as possible, as of writing this it was still available on the Harvey Nicholls, Selfridges and House of Fraser websites.

Sunlight through a windowThe palette is huge, with a mirror in one end, it comes in a gold box with a dust bag. The white and gold compact is gorgeous and screams luxury.

Flash

Flash

Sunlight through a window

It only arrived this afternoon, so I haven't had a chance to play around with this palette on the eye. While swatching the eyeshadow's felt extremely smooth, the glitter shade felt almost wet in the pan, and the pigmentation of the blue shade is intense. I can't wait to start experimenting with looks and I'm super excited to delve into the Tom Ford beauty arena.

 

I'll be updating this post once I've had a good play and posting looks on instagram (aallexxy), come and have a look.

 

Have you splurged on this palette yet? Are you tempted?

 

Thanks for visiting the blog today

 

Alex

 

 

EX1 Cosmetics; Invisiwear foundation and compact powder!!!

So EX1 is the new cosmetics kid on the block, born out of Farah Naz's frustration to match her Asian skin tone, with a biochemist background she designed her own foundation. It's a capsule collection targeted towards Asian, Middle/Far Eastern and Mediterranean gals, with yellow, golden to deep olive undertones.

Now you're probably thinking how the hell do I fit into any of these categories, my intrigued was piqued as I regularly fall in between shades and find it notoriously difficult to be matched at beauty counters. I'm usually somewhere between an NC45-50 in mac, I'm between B70-80 in YSL le teint touché éclat, I'm inbetween bobbi browns extra tinted moisturiser in medium deep and dark...I could go on. I was even color matched by the Boots no7 machine and had a foundation applied on my face, I later glanced in the mirror and I looked grey, the beauty consultant also thought she'd give me a sample of the next shade up to take home commenting that it would look good when I tanned, bearing in mind this was the end of last summer how much darker did she think I was gonna get in autumn/winter. Plus isn't that the purpose of the machine, to remove the beauty consultants subjectivity?! I think you're starting to get the picture. If I use a foundation that's too red my face doesn't look like it belongs to my neck and chest, too light and I look ashy or just wrong, so I'm regularly mixing in Face Ateliers white foundation or mixing too shades together. I was hoping this would be my solution, is there finally a foundation that honours my golden yellow undertones, while respecting the depth of my skins tone, I decided to take the risk.

There are 5 shades in the invisiwear liquid foundation, F100, 200, 300, 400 & 500, I'm the darkest shade. It's housed in a plastic bottle, with a pump and gorgeous rose gold detailing, it's priced at an amazingly affordable £10.50, but I bought from beautyexpert for £7.72 and got a free blusher with 2 purchases. The foundation is thicker than the average liquid, but blends well into the skin, evening out your skintone without being cakey or heavy.

FlashDaylight

It initially looked like it would be too light, bear in mind my arms are currently extrememly tanned with the great weather we've been having, but it blends in beautifully on my face. It gives a semi-matte finish, which on my combination skin and with the current heatwave is great.

Heavily swatchedBlended out

The invisiwear compact powder comes in three shades, P100, 200 & 300, I have the darkest again. It cost £8.99, but I bought for £7.23, not sure how long beautyexpert will sell it at this price, so be quick if you're interested. It states that it mattifies, while hydrating the skin without caking and is oil-free. The first ingredient is talc, so for some this maybe a no go, it comes in the same rose gold packaging with a large mirror.  I found it felt light on the skin, and it did help to mattify my oily t-zone on my combination skin, and didn't look cakey at all. I expected that this would not be a good match for me at all, I assumed it would be too light and make me look ashy, I was wrong. I really like this powder, I can use it to set other foundations I have and it brings back some yellow into a foundation that maybe to red for my skin tone.

The free blusher is in the shade Natural Flush, it's a gorgeous pink hue, that doesn't read chalky or ashy on my deep complexion. I tend to use more coral/peach blushers in the summer, but I've been mixing this in to get a gorgeous pinky peach shade and it will definately get more use in the winter months, plus I love the screw top packaging.

                                     Foundation and powder used in a complete face of make-up!!!

So my risk paid off, I really like this brand, it's affordable, good quality and matches my undertones beautifully. There's also a concealer and mineral powder foundation in the range, which can also be purchased from lookfantastic.com, I'm contemplating ordering the concealer.

Have you tried this range? Any further questions, please put them in the comments below, thank you for visiting the blog today.

Alex