Guest Post for Jeanie at Midnight Manicures: Halloween Jack O' Lantern Nails

Hey guys, I did a guest post for Jeanie at Midnight Manicures featuring these Jack O' Lantern nails for Halloween!

Go and check out my post on her blog!

L'Oreal Magic BB Cream - review, swatches and pics of my skin with & without

So as you know, I'm a huge fan of Missha BB Cream, a real Korean brand BB Cream. I've mentioned before that I think Western companies seem to be putting out super sheer tinted moisturisers and calling them BB Creams, but I'm always open to being proven wrong. I got the chance to try the L'Oreal Magic Skin Beautifier BB Cream through SheSpeaks.com and was excited to see if it lived up to the name BB Cream.

From the L'Oreal Paris website:

Magic Skin Beautifier BB Cream 

4 Beautifying Actions in 1.
Hydrates, Primes, Perfects, Corrects.
Flawless bare skin finish.

Meet the Magic all-in-one skin BB cream, with Beautifying Beads; encapsulated pigments infused in an ultra-light lotion with antioxidants Vitamins C&E. This mullti-tasking skin beautifier delivers 4 beautifying actions in 1: hydrates, corrects, evens and perfects. Instantly transforms to your perfect shade for a flawless, bare skin finish. Over time, more beautiful skin. 

 This BB Cream comes in 4 shades, Fair, Light, Medium and Deep. I assume they are designed to magically adjust and match your skintone, which is why there are only 4 shades. The one I received is Medium.

L'Oreal Magic BB Cream

L'Oreal Magic BB Cream unblended

L'Oreal Magic BB Cream partially blended

L'Oreal Magic BB Cream blended

As you can see, L'Oreal Magic BB Cream starts out white and has tiny microbeads that react with your skin (idk, I'm not going to get all technical) and match your skintone, while diffusing light, smoothing skin and covering imperfections. It glides on beautifully, but because it's so light and smooth, it can be a bit hard to know if you've got enough on.

For the picture below, I applied L'Oreal Magic BB Cream only on the left (your left) side of my face. Here you can see the subtle, but beautiful effect the Cream has:

L: With BB Cream  R: Bare skin

L'Oreal Magic BB Cream

Sorry for hugeass pic of my mostly makeup-less face.

The coverage is quite light, but it gave my skin a natural, glowing, almost airbrushed look and managed to even out texture and tone, cover my pores and redness and lessen my dark circles. The Medium shade matches my skintone perfectly, I am guessing this is the pigmented microbeads doing. The finish is slightly dewy, but seems to eliminate excess shine. I am absolutely in love with how this looks and feels and even if you're after more coverage, this product would make an EXCELLENT primer. My skin felt so smooth and like I had nothing on.

Now, is this a real BB Cream? Well, the first thing I noticed is that it doesn't have SPF. This is one of the main features of an Asian BB Cream, a high level of SPF. Secondly, it's not as full coverage as most Asian BB Creams, it gives more of a nice, even, natural look. Thirdly, it's not really a Blemish Balm. Pretty much every Asian BB Cream has some kind of skin regenerating, brightening and anti-aging properties. The L'Oreal BB Cream does have Vitamin E though. Overall, while this is not a TRUE BB Cream in the sense of Asian BBs, it is an amazing product and definitely NOT just a sheer tinted moisturiser. I usually only use my Missha BB Cream, but I will definitely be reaching for this product again when I want a lightweight, natural look.

Although the RRP on the L'Oreal site is $10.95, I have seen the Magic Skin Beautifier BB Cream at Walmart and Target for around $8.

Disclosure: Product sent for honest review. For more information, see my Disclosure Policy.

The YSL Glossy Stain dupe: L'Oreal Colour Caresse Wet Shine Stain.

I had heard a lot of great things about the YSL Glossy Stain, but you know me.. if there's a cheaper drugstore alternative then so much the better. As much as I'd love to buy high end makeup all the time, sometimes the budget just doesn't allow for it! Although, sometimes I think even if I had a lot of money it'd be hard for me to use something expensive.. I'd want to hoard it lol (I'm cheap at heart). The L'Oreal Colour Caresse Wet Shine Stain has been touted as an almost exact dupe for YSL's Glossy Stain, so I decided to scoop up two of the shades and try it out. The shades I got are Stubborn Plum and Rose On and On. I have sooooo many pinks, so I thought I'd try something different for once lol.

The packaging of the L'Oreal Shine Stain is gold like YSL's and looks nice, but feels a little plastic-y and retains fingerprint smudges like a b*^&! The applicator looks very similar to the YSL one and feels very plush. 

Stubborn Plum

Rose On and On

L: Stubborn Plum, R: Rose On and On

They go on a little sheer, but a couple of swipes produced a nice amount of colour. The staining property of the gloss is pretty great, this photo below is after I had rubbed it repeatedly with a makeup remover wipe.

L: Stubborn Plum, R: Rose On and On

Stubborn Plum

Rose On and On

Stubborn Plum

Rose On and On

The Shine Stain goes on as a gloss and dries to a satiny finish, still somewhat glossy but not super shiny. It has a strong floral sweet scent that fades after application, but may bother you at first if you're sensitive to strong scents. The glossy feel lasted a good 5 hours and through drinking, but not through eating. The colour from the stain lasted well, through eating, although it did fade a little. It wears evenly though, so you aren't left with a weird lipliner look after a few hours. I have heard some of the shades are more pigmented than others, these two went on somewhat sheer, but I was able to build up the colour just using one coat from the applicator, no need to dip into the gloss a second time. I have quite pigmented lips, so I was worried that the colour wouldn't be opaque enough, but both shades showed up quite nicely.

I think I will enjoy using the L'Oreal Color Caresse Wet Shine Stain quite often, as I love lipglosses and I love lip stains and this little amalgamation is a great product for the price. I got mine for $7.99 at Target, although prices vary.

Spring Trend: Bright & Floral Nail Art

Yes, it's still the middle of Winter. But I live in Southern California, I laugh at Winter! Ha!

It's been warming up around these parts lately, so I was in the mood to do a Spring inspired manicure. Brights, pastels and florals are always big in Spring and this season will be no different. I actually picked up the two polishes I used in the clearance section at Target, as they're from L'Oreal's collection last Spring.

Boozy Brunch & Penthouse Pink.

I was debating on which polish to use first, when I thought hey, why not use both? I decided to do this bright twist on the usual pastel or vintage style of floral nail art. This is my first attempt at floral print and I'm happy with the results.

I did 2 coats of Penthouse Pink except on the ring finger. For the accent nail I did 2 coats of Boozy Brunch, then used my dotting tool to do little rose shaped blobs with Penthouse Pink and used a nail art brush from Born Pretty to do the silver accents (Wet n Wild Metallica) and green leaves (Sinful Colors Open Seas). I think I should've used another shade of darker pink, or maybe black for the rose accents, but I just had the silver on hand so I used it.

It's not perfect, but I think it's pretty good for my first attempt! My husband said it looked like a sticker, I was like "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED".

I can pretty much guarantee that we'll be seeing a lot more florals, pastels and bright colours this Spring, including Nail Art! I think this is a fun way to do all three trends at once!