Totally unintentional, this month’s favorites are a Charlotte Tilbury lovefest. In which Astrid also utters the incomparable sentence ‘other people have bags. I have lipsticks’. I mean, if that doesn’t convince you to read on, I don’t know what will.
Oh, maybe this: our combined skincare recommendations that’ll save your skin.
Dorit’s Fabulous February Favourite
Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow
Sometimes, the chase of a product is gratifying in itself – and the buildup of anticipation (will I get it? Won’t I get it?) makes you appreciate and love the product even more when you finally, finally bought it. I had once swatched CT’s Filmstar Bronze & Glow duo at their Selfridges counter, but horrible lighting (honestly, Selfridges!) combined with a lack of time to properly swatch and test it, made me waffle and skip. That’s three years ago. And after finally buying it at Christmas Eve (at De Bijenkorff in Amsterdam) I’ve worn it countless times. So often, in fact, that it deserves a mention in this months’ favourites.
What is it?
A highlighter and bronzing powder duo, housed in a chic golden compact with a mirror. It comes with a whopping 16g/0,56 oz. of product and is made in Italy. Both powders are silky, luminous without being glittery, and easy to apply and blend. The bronzing powder is a light caramel brown (totally unsuitable as a bronzer for skintones darker than a light medium, but there’s also a duo for darker skintones available), while the highlighter is a light champagne-gold.
What to do with it?
The highlighting powder is nicely glowy without being over the top. On the glowy scale it’s firmly between MAC Lightscapade (subtle) and Becca’s Opal (quite glowy). It lacks that nearly wet-looking sheen Becca (for example) has, but that can be a good thing, depending on your highlighting taste. It blends into my skintone (NC15) very well, and of course, doesn’t sit on the skin or looks chalky. You can totally wear that during the day for a fresh look.
Same with the bronzing powder. It’s a warm-toned one, but doesn’t lean orange. But with the added shimmer, the warmth makes it totally unsuitable as a contouring powder which should lean cool and ashy (mimicking shadows, after all). I love to sweep it over all the high planes of my face for a sun-kissed look. It gives a soft, bronzed glow that CT so loves, and is very, very flattering. It’s super easy to apply with a fluffy brush, and isn’t chalky at all. CT says you can build it up, but I find that subtle application is key – after you build it up a lot, it veers really warm – too warm for my complexion.
It doesn’t hurt that it comes in a gorgeous compact, and is very travel-friendly as well. Buy it here.
The question of the month: What’s your skincare/makeup recommendation RIGHT NOW?
Never, ever forget to moisturize. The combo of cold and dry heater air inside, doubled with wearing a lot of woolen leggins and such, tripled with forgetting to moisturize make for painfully dry skin on my shins. Let me say I regret my decisions deeply. Lesson: Even if you think ‘oh, it’s not too bad right now’, you could one day wake up with your skin itching and peeling. My life saver right now is Eucerin’s Repair Lotion with 10% Urea and Pai’s Rosehip Oil. Ouch.
Astrid’s Fabulous February Favourite
As fate would have it (we didn’t even coordinate!), my February favorite is also from Charlotte Tilbury.
Charlotte Tilbury Lip Gloss in High Society
It’s one of those bound to be the unsung hero in my makeup arsenal. At the Charlotte Tilbury site, the swatch looks much darker on the main model here. On my lips, it’s just this very easy going lip gloss that looks like my lips are on their best behavior. The size and color make this gloss a perfect one to carry on my coat pocket because it simply goes with everything that goes with my skin tone. I don’t need a mirror to apply it, and it does a good job of keeping my lips moisturized while still slightly tinted (which makes me look made up).
Besides, there is something I adore about having a nice lip product to apply. Some people have bags, I have lipsticks.
The Color
One of the reasons I bought this is I used to love this Guerlain lip gloss, given by my mother in law some years back, but it’s a limited edition to start with, and I have never been able to find a dupe for it. Didn’t think this was the exact same color, but it really does come close!
The Look
The question of the month: What’s your skincare/makeup recommendation RIGHT NOW?
Clean properly. I know it seemed like a no-brainer to many of you, but some months back, I did not do this properly. I just wash my face with a face soap and that’s it. Now I actually do have several types of cleanser (LOL), and while you don’t have to do the same, but properly cleaning the face off makeup and day dirt are so important (I really see lots of improvements on my skin over the year).
The cleansing products I’m currently using are:
- Morning: COSRX Low pH Good Morning Cleanser
- Evening: Clinique Cleansing Balm for face + Lancome Bi-Facil for the eyes (for when I’m wearing makeup), NIOD Sanskrit Saponins every other day for skin rejuvenation.
