If You Could Choose Any Make-Up From House Of Fraser

I thought ‘What has been on my wishlist for ages? Have I seen any stand-out products on blogs lately?’, that would be a good starting point.

I narrowed it down to the two following products: A Laura Mercier Silk Creme Foundation, and Lancome Shine Lover Lip Stick. The foundation is somewhat of a cult classic because everyone always talks about how amazing Laura Mercier base products are, and the lipstick because I wore something similar 3 years ago at my sister’s wedding when I was bridesmaid.

Lancome Shine Lover in Amuse Bouche*, £22

As I mentioned above, I wore a Lancome lipstick on the day of my sister’s wedding. I *think* it might have been from the Rouge In Love collection but the day was such a whirlwind, I can’t really remember the small details. Anyway, the lipstick was my Mum’s, she let me borrow it and the coral-pink shade matched the colour of my bridesmaid dress soooooo perfectly, I fell in love with it. But she has, since then, lost the lipstick. And guess what? I didn’t note down which one of the 30 shades it was! Argh!

I gave up looking for the exact shade and wondered over to the Shine Lover range. I remember blogging about this in my 5 Gorgeous Lipsticks Launch blogpost over year ago. I picked a shade called Amuse Bouche – a pretty, day-time, summer-appropriate coral-orange. 

It packs on quite the vibrancy for a sheer, glossy lipstick and provides up to 8hours of moisture. And it just feels great on lips, it ticks all the boxes! Moisturising? Tick! Non-sticky? Tick! It even has hyaluronic acid which plumps out fine lines. 

Talking about fine lines, the lipstick does seem to sit in the lines of your lips upon application – a small issue that can be fixed with a slight side-to-side swipes with your fingertip. 

There are currently 14 beautiful shades available in Lancome’s Shine Lover Lipstick collection which retails for £22.00 from House of Fraser.

Laura Mercier Silk Creme Oil Free Photo Edition Foundation*, £35

The brand describes this as a ‘photo-ready, natural matte finish which is ideal for video, photography, and special events’. PERFECT! 

Everyone always raves about the Laura Mercier Silk Creme foundations, especially the luminous, moisturising formula which I have swatched on the back of my hand many times and it is a LOVELY foundation. I should’ve have picked it but instead, I went for the oil-free version (why did I have to try and be different!?).

If your skin type is on the oilier side, this is, for sure, worth a go. I don’t actually have an oily skin type, but I think the logic behind my choice was that on sweltering hot days, my face is going to be shiny, and maybe an oil-free foundation would help eliminate the whole sweaty mess. 

The coverage is medium to full, so it is not as sheer as I’d like for this time of year… but… it’s an oil-free formula, so I figured that something’s got to give! For a matte foundation, it doesn’t feel heavy on skin but at the same time, it’s obviously not as light as a BB cream.

I panicked at first because the swatch on my hand seemed to feel chalky. And when I applied the foundation directly on to my face, it highlighted the flaws on my chin area which I had little pimples. But thankfully, after a short while, the matte finish foundation worked with the natural oils on my face and the results looked nice and natural, and I was really happy with how it looked throughout the day. I see what they mean now when they describe the foundation as a ‘natural matte finish’. Even the surface around my chin appeared to have evened out too.

I chose it in the shade Ivory but if I was to repurchase this, I may go one shade darker because Ivory is a smidge too pale for me.