REVIEW - Lily Lolo Mineral Foundation in shade Porcelain

This is currently my everyday foundation. I love it. Love love love it. 

This was my first mineral foundation which I bought after reading that it was great for pale shades. So I went for their palest shade, porcelain. The great thing about Lily Lolo is that you can buy a sample size of their foundations really cheaply to make sure you get the right shade. I went straight for the palest though as I know there isn't much point for me to go a shade darker! I also purchased their concealer in shade blondie as I didn't have a powder concealer (I mean, who would really), a sample pot of the finishing powder and some green corrector powder for my red cheeks. A bit of a blow out really, but hey, you're allowed to sometimes. 

Before I apply any of the products, I moisturise really well and make sure it has really sunk in. Then I put the green corrector powder on which is AMAZING. I was a little sceptical reading the comments on their website because they were all so positive I just assumed they had been carefully screened before being posted. However, this is pretty much a red cheek eraser powder. I am so impressed with how it covers my red cheeks. Obviously, it doesn't hide them completely, but I would say it is 90% reduced. And it has lasted me a good year of wearing it everyday.

The concealer is a great pale shade. Concealers are very hard to find in shades lighter than orange, but this is fantastic. The coverage is not as good as your typical liquid concealer, but it is great at reducing under eye circles and covering spots. I also put a light dusting over my green powder on my cheeks just to get a little more coverage. 

The actual foundation is fantastic. The shade porcelain is a damn good match to my skin colour and the coverage is light to medium, but with the green powder and concealer, I would say medium to full. The tricky part can be the application because if you're not careful you can end up with powder every where. But with a little practice it becomes much easier. This isn't like a powder foundation I've used before, it is so finely milled (ground? whatever) that it just looks like your skin. No one will be able to tell you are wearing foundation, it really does just look like your own skin just better. Initially, before I bought this, I thought a powder foundation would dry out my skin but this doesn't at all. There is no tightness or anything, in fact it feels like you are not wearing anything on your skin at all. It also does not stick to any dry patches you might have. The other great thing about the foundation is that you get a huge pot of the stuff. I can hardly see a dent in what I've used and I've had it almost a year and use way more product than they recommend. So it's really good value for money.

One point to add though is that if you want your foundation to last I would recommend getting the finishing powder as well. I used up my sample and thought, well, what difference will it actually make. A huge difference, that's what. Without the finishing powder, it will only last about 4 hours before it starts to fall off a bit. With the finishing powder, it will last all day no problem. So just bare that in mind. 

Overall, this is simply a great set of products that I really recommend you try.

REVIEW - Dr Jart+ Regenerating Beauty Balm

Strictly speaking, this is not a foundation but I'm including it anyway because BB creams are the absolute worst for pale shades. This is literally the only one I have found that isn't some strange orange colour.  I bought this a while ago after reading some good things about this BB cream. There are 3 others in the range: waterfuse, premium beauty and platinum beauty. Each one only comes in one shade. I went for the regenerating version because it supposedly reduces redness and I have the most ridiculous red cheeks. A little on the expensive side but with such good reviews I decided to give it a go, especially as most of the negative comments seemed to be that the colour was very very pale. 

Well there were no samples to try in the shop so I took a gamble and bought it. When I opened it back at home I noticed just how dark it is! I put it on the same way I would put on foundation and it looked really dark on my skin. I was so dissapointed because I thought I'd bought another product I would not actually be able to wear. So after a couple more attempts I left it at the bottom of my makeup drawer. 

However, a few weeks ago I was clearing out my products and I thought I'd give it another go. This time I really rubbed it, much more like you would with a moisturiser rather than with a foundation. Again it still looked pretty dark on my skin. Not orange or yellow, just darker than my natural shade. But, after about 15 minutes or so, I looked back in the mirror and it seemed to have blended out much more evenly with my skin tone, if that makes sense. I decided to keep it on and kept glancing in my mirror throughout the day and it continued to look great. So if you do try it and it looks kind of dark on you, just wait a while and it might even out a bit!

So a little more information. It has a very very dewy finish which does settle down after a while but stays pretty dewy throughout the day so some people may want to powder over the top. Personally I have very dry skin so this kept my face very moisturised and didn't show any of my dry patches which I was really happy about. And yes, I do think it reduced my red cheeks a little. The coverage is light to medium, so it is never going to hide my red cheeks completely, but I do think it sort of balances them out a lot more than most light/medium coverage foundations do. I still moisturise before using this product but I don't apply any primer or concealer. I also love that it has spf30 so it is great for summer time as my usual moisturiser only has spf15.

Personally, I think the product is a bit pricey, but they are half price at the moment in the shops, so if you were thinking of trying out a BB cream that does actually work, and comes in a reasonable pale shade to boot, I'd definitely give this one a go.