#PaleGirls: Contouring

Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Welcome back to the #PaleGirls series, a feature here on Isobel Rose aimed at helping all of you lovely pale-skin beauties look fabulous. Now I know that this feature isn't for everyone, but being an extremely pale girl myself, I know how hard it can be to find makeup suited for our fair complexions. Something that I've always found quite tricky is finding contour colours that don't look ridiculous on my skin tone - most are too orange, whilst others can make you look like you've been in a bar fight the night before. But no more! I've found two powders that work for me even when I'm at my palest, and I'm here to share my wisdom with you all today. Now before we get going, I'm not saying that you have to buy high end products to get the right colour match, or that these are the only two contour colours for fairer skin, but these are the two I've come across that have always worked well for me. Starting off at the slightly cheaper end of the spectrum, we have MAC's Powder Blush in Harmony which comes in at £18 and does the job just nicely. The texture is beautifully creamy and easy to blend, and you get a hell of a lot of product for your money. Winner. Then we have a slightly newer release, the NARS Contour Blush in Olympia (£30) which does exactly what it says on the tin. I have written about Olympia here, but if I was to compare the two, I would say that the NARS shade is ever so slightly lighter than Harmony, but honestly I doubt you could tell the difference, especially once applied.

Okay - so we've got the contour colour picked out and ready, so now it's time to choose which tools to work with. In my experience, you can achieve different intensity levels of contour with a wide array of brushes, so my two picks in this post aren't mandatory. However, if you're looking to get a nice defined contour without ending up with random lines all over your face, I highly recommend the following brushes (if not something similar). First up we have the RT Flat Contour Brush - a rectangular shaped stiff face brush that allows you to place a good amount of product exactly where you want it before blending out. The thick density of the bristles on this brush means that you can really concentrate the colour, and it's shape aids even the clumsiest of contourers when placing it correctly. This brush can also be used to blend out the colour, but I honestly prefer something a bit fluffier, like the Sephora Pro Angled Blush Brush. I picked this baby up whilst in Valencia, and it's quickly become a favourite for blush and contour alike. The shape of the brush means that you won't end up spreading the contour colour too far from where it should be, but it's fluffy enough so that you don't end up looking too harsh.

Contouring is a skill that even I am yet to master, but I hope this post has been useful to all of you, not just my fair-skinned sisters out there. Good luck, and let me know if you have any favourite products/tricks for contouring!
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What I've Been Loving #38

Sunday, February 8, 2015
Since announcing my spending ban, I've really been trying to dive in and use some of my once-beloved products that somehow found their way to the back of the draw. This last few weeks has been fairly skincare based as my skin had been having a bit of a tantrum! I've been able to keep most of the dryness at bay, but I've been plagued instead with big, sore spots that seem to be taking an age to fade - it's always something! There have been a few key products that I've been turning to, and this lovely Sunday morning we're going to take a quick look at a few of them...

When it comes to pesky blemishes that long outstay their welcome, Trilogy's Rosehip Oil steps in to save the day. Rosehip oil is fantastic at helping out with just about every skincare woe, but it particularly excels at helping to repair skin and improving its overall appearance. It has certainly helped to fade some of my acne scars, and it helps to rehydrate my dry skin at the same time! If only it smelt better...

Having grown up in Asia, I have always been particularly fond of BB creams, and this bad boy by Dr. Jart + is no exception. Despite the annoying volcano of a spot popping up, my skin has been pretty clear in general so this has been great for everyday use. It's perfect for dry skin as it doesn't highlight any dryness in the slightest, and even helps to keep your skin hydrated throughout the day - magic! I've been using this all over my face with a RT Buffer Brush and then using my favourite NARS Radiant Creamy Concealer to provide more coverage on any blemishes. Perfection. 

Unlike the veterans mentioned above, this scrub is actually a fairly recent addition to my collection after it was recommended by a lovely follower on Twitter. This scrub is actually pretty special - it's a mixture of a manual and a chemical exfoliator which means it hits all the spots when it comes to getting rid of any dead skin and smoothing out the surface of your skin. It's fairly gritty so you have to be a bit light handed with it, but due to it's ingredients it's also incredibly good at detoxing your face and clearing out your pores. It's early days but I think this could be a game-changer.

What have you been loving recently?
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Skincare splashing

Friday, February 6, 2015
Let's not fool ourselves, we all love a bit of skincare, and a few weeks ago it was finally time to refill some of my all-time favourites - much to my bank balance's dismay. The first port of call was Origins to repurchase two of my must-have skincare bits, the Modern Friction Exfoliator and the High Potency Night-A-Mins Moisturiser, and I made sure to order from their website as they always send great samples, and if I was about to spend that much money, I wanted to be able to try out a few new products. When that box full of lush products landed on my doorstep, not only did it contain my two purchases, but some very generous samples from the Dr Andrew Weil Mega-Bright range, as well as a few cult favourites in sachet form - kaching! If you're a fan of Origins products, then I would definitely recommend ordering from their website (preferably in bulk!) as they are insanely generous with their samples, and the more you spend, the more you get! Then I thought, as I was already fully aboard the skincare wagon, that I finally needed to repurchase my well-loved and sorely missed REN Glycolactic Radiance Renewal Mask from my local M&S Beauty Hall. I've talked about my love of chemical exfoliators before here, and although this comes in at £30 a pop, it's definitely something worth investing in. By chance, a consultant from REN happened to be wandering the aisles of the beauty hall offering free consultations, and her magic way with words and my more-troublesome-than-usual skin lately meant that I ended up leaving with the REN Clarimatte Invisible Pores Detox Mask as well - oops. I haven't had much of an opportunity to try this yet, but from what I have seen of it, it seems pretty nice. So there we go - a naughty but *necessary* skincare splash that restocked my cupboards and put a big smile on my face!


What have been your favourite skincare products lately? 
Are there any that you simply can't be without? Let me know in the comments!

*All items were purchased before the start of my spending ban :)
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comments: 19

What's holding me back?

Wednesday, February 4, 2015
I've always had trouble articulating my thoughts - finding a way to weave my experiences and opinions into something that others would enjoy reading or draw inspiration from. English was my weakest subject throughout my schooling career, and even to this day replying to long emails that require a lot of thought can take me days to tackle. So why did I choose to pursue blogging? Good question. An intense passion for all things beauty plus a love for anything arty and creative drove me forward, but now, nearly four years later, my journey has been an ever-changing and unexpected one. I've gone from a scared teenage girl with big changes ahead of her to a more outspoken, confident young woman with a few more experiences in her back pocket and an uncertain future. My approach to blogging has changed - I am no longer satisfied with post after post of lipstick swatches - I want to make something more of myself and the work I produce. It's not that I don't love the beauty world, I do and I wouldn't be writing about it so often if I didn't, but I feel like I need to pop the beauty bubble that I've been stuck inside for so long and see what lies beyond. But this is where I hit a wall. Some of the best content that I've produced (in my opinion, anyway) has been me pouring my heart out onto the page and seeing the incredible response that it receives, but every time I go to write up something new, that 15 year old girl that plays Crazy Taxi through every single English class is rolling her eyes at me. She knows that it's not my strength, not what I got into blogging for, and also knows all too well my deep-seeded insecurities about being deemed 'not good enough' - not just in my writing, but in practically every aspect of my life. Every time I want to start a new post that is more chit-chatty and less of a review, I feel like the wording, the punctuation and the style has to be perfect - like I'm back in that exam hall again ready to be scrutinised and marked on every mistake I make. I have friends and colleges both inside the blogging world and beyond who I regard as such talented writers, and I fear that anything less than their quality of writing should be frowned upon or avoided altogether. But the comparisons stop here. From now on, I am going to write to my heart's content and not worry if I don't end up with a literary piece of art, because that's not me, and that's not what my blog is about. I want to write about what matters to me - whether that be cream highlights or mental health issues - and I'm going to write it as me, because only I can tell my story.
Isobel x
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comments: 6

All or nothing

Tuesday, February 3, 2015
After years of experience, I've come to discover that I'm an 'all or nothing' kinda' girl - either I'm busy beyond belief yet still want to do keep on top of everything else I do, or I have a lot of free time and I just cannot be bothered to even move. This applies to most areas of my life; when I'm on exam leave I not only leave makeup well alone, but I generally become a lot lazier at enforcing my skincare routine, or when I have a bit of free time, the last thing I want to do is take blog photos and then when I'm super busy and have very little daylight to work with, I am brimming with ideas. Anyway, this blog post is to let you know that after 2 or so weeks of freedom, my brain seems to be tapped out of all ideas and/or motivation to do anything blog-wise. It's so frustrating because I know that within a matter of days I'l be snowed under and ready to go, but I'm not going to force myself to write posts that I'm just not in the mood to write. Life is too short for that. Fret not though, I started classes again yesterday so I'm sure my brain will be overflowing with ideas in no time, but if I'm a bit irregular with my posts over the next week or so, that's why. 

I hope you are all doing well and are enjoying the content that I'm posting, but if there's anything in particular you want to see, or any questions you want to ask, leave me a comment or send me an email! Hasta luego,

Isobel x


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