THE BRANDS & THE PRODUCTS: BASE

There are lots of brands out there providing their fair share of beauty products and contributing to the £4 billion UK beauty market. Having said that there are some brands that are renowned for their amazing products within a particular department of beauty, whether it is a particular foundation or highlighter etc. As an avid drugstore beauty lover, there are some drugstore picks thrown in for good measure!

| FOUNDATION

When it comes to primers, I don’t have one product or brand that I’m loyal to, however foundations are a whole other story. An amazing brand for base products in general is NARS. For foundation, the Sheer Glow is my go-to. It has amazing coverage without a matte or cakey finish and makes the skin appear nice and perfected. The shade range is pretty good and vast too which is imperative for me. On the drugstore front, Maybelline and L’Oreal are my tried and true - again mainly due to their affordability and the shades they have on offer. The Maybelline Fit Me Matte & Poreless is one of my holy grail foundations that I can rely on and know that I’ll get the same consistent result every time. Of course L’Oreal have the renowned true match foundation, which is said to be a dupe for the honorable Giorgio Armani luminous silk foundation.

| CONCEALER

For concealer, it goes to Nars and Maybelline for both my high end and drugstore picks. The Nars Radiant Creamy Concealer has a nice formula, with a nice balance of coverage and consistency. I find the coverage to be really good at concealing both blemishes and under eye circles without it having a formula that’s difficult to blend. The Maybelline Fit Me concealer is one that I always go back to – there’s honestly nothing that I can fault with this product and what makes it better is how inexpensive it is. This has been compared to the aforementioned Nars Radiant Creamy concealer (full comparison, here), however I would say that it’s not as thick in density. An additional drugstore pick is the LA Girl Pro concealer, which is insanely inexpensive but still has a good amount of coverage.

| POWDER

For the past few years, Vichy has been my number one, particularly for powder. It’s definitely one of those underrated products. Their setting powder is perfect if you’re someone who finds it difficult to get powders that are correct for their skin tone as it’s completely transparent and doesn’t leave you looking ashy or caked face as it’s very finely milled. Rimmel are also pretty good on the powder front with products such as the Stay Matte or my personal favourite, which is the Clear Complexion. Both powders are great at setting your makeup to keep it in place and increase longevity, however if you a have medium to dark skin tone, the clear complexion is a lot better as it doesn’t have much (if any) pigmentation in it.

| CONTOUR

I love a good contour and for the most part, I’m pretty faithful to the products I contour with. I was recently introduced to the Pixi by Petra makeup and I quickly fell in love with the Strobe and Sculpt Palette, which not only has shades to contour, but also lovely highlighters too. The shade ‘Queen’ is my favourite to contour with as it’s perfect for my skin tone and isn’t too warm or reddy tone. If you’ve been an avid reader of my blog, you’ll know that the Sleek Contour Kit has been a keen staple of mine for years. The shade dark is great for quite a variety of dark skin tones. All of their shades are have a cool undertone and imitate a natural contour either subtly or be built up for an intense, chiseled contour.

| HIGHLIGHT

Unfortunately for highlight, I haven’t really experimented with many drugstore highlighters, but two brands that I always go to when I’m on the hunt for an amazing and strong highlight are MAC and Bobbi Brown. The Mineralize Skin Finishes from MAC are some of the favoured highlighters within my stash. I have a few of them and my favourite shades are Global Glow (a mid tone golden bronze), Cheeky Bronze (a light gold with pink shimmer) and Gold Deposit (a true warm tone gold). The Highlighting Powder from Bobbi Brown is probably up there as one of my top two highlighters. It has insane pigmentation and looks so beautiful on the skin. With both brands, the formulas are pretty intense on their own, however it can be built up with some setting spray.

| BLUSHER

In all honesty, I’m not and never have been someone who’s been obsessed with blusher so it’s not a category that I know extensively. That being said, I know that Hourglass is definitely the brand for a nice subtle pop of colour on the cheeks. The Ambient Lighting blush is perfect if you like the blusher/highlighter hybrid of adding a hint of tint and a glow to the cheeks. For the drugstore, one of my favourite brands for blusher is Topshop. These blushers have good longevity and are really easy to build up the pigmentation and blend. There is also quite a nice shade range of blushers with two different finishes – cream and powder.

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What are your favourite makeup brands for your base?