Prime Time

As today is the 150th anniversary of the London underground, what better time than to write about the undergroundings of my makeup: primers! Which, like the Tube itself, should be efficient and unobtrusive in smoothing one's way, but which at their worst are often irritating, clogging, frankly sweaty and full of strange and overpowering stenches....

Okay, okay, we will drop the metaphor. for now....

The Products

left to right:

Suqqu Makeup Base Creamy (£33 for 15ml, ingredients) is the most moisturising, with a feather-light gel-cream texture. It's hideously expensive for a tiny eye-cream-sized pot, and has recently been discontinued, so I now reserve mine for special events in winter -- a pea-sized amount miraculously smoothes over flakes as well as handling the basic pore- and line-blurring and skintone-evening which are my other bottom-line requirements for primers. (With my dry skin, I don't have problems with lasting power or oxidisation.) The pale, neutral pink tint is a great brightener for prone-to-dullness winter skin, and barely registers as a colour even when I'm at my palest.

Shu Uemura Under Base Cream Pink (£29 for 30ml) Currently being auditioned as a future replacement for the Suqqu primer. The tint is slightly warmer/peachier and the texture has a more conventional light siliconey slip, unlike Suqqu's almost water-light cream [which I can't describe adequately because it's so different to most of what's out there, but if you've tried their Creamy Glow lipsticks, you'll know what I mean], and this isn't quite as moisturising, but it's the best substitute I've found so far. If you've any recommendations, please leave me a comment!

Shu Uemura Under Base Cream Pink ingredients

Shu Uemura UV Underbase Mousse Tsuya (Peach) and Brightening (Pink/Purple) (each £29 for 50ml) are both part of Shu's range of fun aerosol-dispensed mousse bases, which come in several other priming shades as well as three 'foundation/BB' shades catering to NC15-NC25. The ingredients differ for each shade, but in general the mousses are lightweight and meant to create a lastingly flawless satin-matte base, with good sun protection (SPF30/PA++) for oily skins in summer heat/humidity.

The Tsuya (Peach) mousse is an evolution of this line, a skincare/makeup hybrid (incorporating Shu's Tsuya Skin serum), marketed at mature normal/combination skin. Its combined alcohol and silica content sadly proved too drying for me. Shame, as the light apricot shade was fantastic at knocking out redness and gave my skin a fabulously healthy 'bloom' which usually requires a lot of careful bronzer and blusher blending to achieve. And the light peach scent was a nice dose of psychological sunniness too.

Shu Uemura UV Under Base Mousse Tsuya (Peach) ingredients

The Brightening (Pink/Purple) version shares actives with Shu's Whitefficient skincare range and is aimed instead at dry skin: the most moisturising of the mousses and actively glowy (without shimmer), with an unusual pale lilac tint to correct the sallowness, uneven tone, and overall 'dullness' which Japanese skincare wisdom conventionally links to dehydration and aims to counter with these 'brightening' products. Unlike the Tsuya mousse, this has a light floral scent.

Shu Uemura Brightening UV Under Base Mousse Pink/Purple ingredients

At the Selfridges Shu masterclass last May, I was advised to use a ball closer to the size of a pea than the walnut advised on the Shu site, patting it on with a small flat brush from the centre of the face outwards (they used a #12 Synthetic). Which was fantastic advice -- the patting motions meant that pores really did vanish before my eyes and the tiny amount used prevented any ashiness (on darker skintones) or Violet Beauregarde cast (on paler ones). It takes a bit of practice to master the milisecond-press needed to dispense a pea rather than golfball, but well worth it. This does contain alcohol quite far down in the ingredients list, and on my very dry skin, is best reserved for warmer temperatures/climates; even so, it leaves me a softly luminous satin finish rather than an all-out glow. In winter, it is too matte/drying, and I mix the lavender-tinted Suki CC cream 02 Brightening into my foundation to get some of the similar red- and yellow- tone correcting benefits. (More on the Suki later, in a post dedicated to base mixers.)

Swatches

left to right: Suki, Shu Pink/Purple, Shu Peach, Shu Pink, Suqqu

semi-blended

fully blended

As you can see, they all blend invisibly into my skin, even the worryingly orange Shu Tsuya peach and pigmented Suki lavender. This is why I won't be posting facial before-and-afters -- the differences -- so immediately obvious in reality, which fuels my addiction to priming not just before but above and often instead of foundation -- are beyond my photography skills at the moment.

For now I will transparently circle back to the anniversary of the Underground, and leave you with this cast pic from the upcoming BBC Radio 4 play of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere:

.... James McAvoy to head! Benedict Cumberbatch as The Angel Islington! Anthony Head as Croup! Sophie Okonedo as Hunter! And that's just a partial cast pic! More details here.

12 of 2012

...Better late than never? Apologies for my longer-than-planned break, and the belatedness of this "best of 2012" year in review post; I'm looking forward to catching up with all of your picks (and other blog posts, and comments) soon.

My Favourite (New) Things: 2012

(I've excluded any new shades in formulas I was already familiar with -- as I'm much more texturally picky this helped focus my selection from a pretty good year for makeup discoveries.)

Shu Uemura Brightening UV Underbase Mousse SPF30 A moisturising, texture- and colour-correcting primer to knock out both sallowness and redness at once, and vanish pores, without leaving skin too ashy-cool or matte; effective enough that I can usually skip foundation afterwards.

Suki CC Cream 02 Whitening I still enjoy the ritual of applying foundation, even (maybe especially) when it isn't a necessity, and a tiny drop or two of this pigmented lavender-tinted bargain (about £2 at Sasa) lightens and neutralises most of the 'palest' shades on the market to actually match my skin, without discernibly changing their formulas.

Vapour Organic Beauty Atmosphere Luminous Foundation 90 (more) Any foundation that matches me out of the box [okay, it's a hair dark now in the depths of winter, but nothing a dab of Suki can't solve] is a noteworthy discovery; factor in a creamy, clean-ingredients-filled formula, a skinlike finish and a small company with decent ethics to support and we have a favourite for this year, and no doubt many to come.

Burberry Sheer Touch Concealer 01 (more) The best texture I've ever encountered in a concealer, and the perfect pink tones in a shade darker than my skin to knock back my blue/green circles without making my face look unnaturally flat. One click suffices so this tube has been going strong since May, with daily use. (Honourable mention goes to Korres Materia Herba Anti-Dark Circles Eye Cream (reviewed here, with my other skincare discoveries of 2012), without which this click-pen wouldn't provide sufficient coverage.)

Rouge Bunny Rouge Eye Gloss Typical of RBR, to nail a product I'd been craving for years: a truly glossy (no glitter or iridescent sheen), absolutely un-sticky highlighter, versatile enough to use under, over or mixed with powders on the lid, or elsewhere on the face. Stands on its own in minimalist looks too.

L'Oreal Telescopic False Lash Waterproof Mascara (worn here and here) Every bit as good as the Fasio mascara I reviewed earlier this year, but available locally, and currently on BOGOF at Boots. Made in Italy, but with the gimmicky wand and separate-remover-needed apocalypse-proof formula more usually found in Japanese brands.

Tom Ford Eyeshadow Blend Brush (review and comparison with my other blenders soon.) Excellent balanced goat-hair crease/blending brush, made by Hakuhodo.

Most of the colour products I've already reviewed:
Dolce&Gabbana Sole blush (here) and Guerlain Rouge G L'Extrait M25 Colère (here) are both great examples of bright, clear reds with enough corally warmth to counteract my naturally cool pink cheeks and mauve lips, in faultless formulas.
THREE Flash Performance Eyeliner 05 Eye Rock (here) is the best black liner I can imagine, and I've professed my love for the Shu Uemura Karl Lagerfeld Prestigious Bordeaux Palette so frequently and recently that surely no more need be said.

Still forthcoming, a review of Kiko Long-Lasting Stick Eyeshadow in 04 Golden Chocolate, which in short is another By-Terry-Ombre-Blackstar-a-like, and even cheaper than the Topshop version.

Scent of the Year: L'Artisan Seville À L'Aube

I've helpfully drawn your attention to the reason for my purchase....

Totally cheating, since this is the only unplanned fragrance purchase I made this year. But I don't like playing favourites with my pretties anyway -- it feels like....playing favourites. I reach for lush white florals to chase away winter blues and this one is a particularly gorgeous rendition: bright orange-blossom and honeyed jasmine, delicately edged in incense, the sweetness cut with subtlest lavender and lifted by sparkling pink pepper -- bottled sunlight.


PS If any of you remember my resolution last January to buy only twelve new products in the year (discounting replacements and staples) and was expecting this post to wrap that up -- in conclusion, big fat fail. Of the eight products I bought before nixing the plan, I've kept two, only one of which (D&G Sole) made it onto this list of favourites (the other was RBR Calypso eye pencil), which is actually worse than my usual impulsive/unplanned hit-rate. [Overall my collection has shrunk -- of which more in a future post -- but I don't think the 12-12 project deserves any credit for that.]
For the last few months of 2012 I've had more success employing a one-in-one-out system of replacement buying, with no 'free' purchases, and will be continuing with that plan in 2013.