Summer Essentials: KEVYN AUCOIN the Creamy Glow Duo

Tags

BECCA Shimmering Skin Perfector, Charlotte Tilbury, Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow, comparisons, contour, highlighter, Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder Palette, incandescent light, Kevyn Aucoin, Moonstone, review, swatches

With the Season of the Highlighters in its full force, there’s nothing more chic than a double-duty, dainty, beauty to-go essential product! This is the Kevyn Aucoin Creamy Glow Duo, a beautiful little compact containing the cult favourite, powerful pair of the Candlelight highlighter and the Sculpting powder in shade #4 Medium, both in cream form this time!

#4 Medium is made with brown, grey and red pigments that create the look of a natural medium shade shadow, excellent to use on medium and fair skin tones like mine! Now I have a bit of a tan on and it works just fine as well!

It looks like this medium earthy brown with a subtle grey in it, but dark enough when layered ( as you can see in the swatches below! ), an ashy brown that translates more of a subtle shadow. It blends so well and its almost impossible to go wrong with because it gives such a natural look! And doesn’t lean orange no matter how much you apply, as the shade Sculpt from my Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow tends to do!

Candelight, the highlighting shade is an absolutely glorious champagne colour with a luminous golden sheen to it given by such finely milled particles of shimmer, that don’t translate as obvious on the cheeks but this gorgeous pearl shimmer without being sparkly or glittery. Just that angelic/hallo effect/glow-from-within look everybody’s talking about!

It’s pretty similar but a tiny bit more golden than my other all-time favourite highlighter the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder in Incandescent Light – which is a powder, less obvious and golden than the Highlight shade from the Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze and Glow, and the most similar with a recent discovery of mine in terms of highlighters – the BECCA Shimmering Skin Perfector in Moonstone.

Now a few words on the formulation!

This is one of the most amazing cream formulas I have ever tried! Rubbed for a couple of seconds between your fingers, it transforms into this thin, velvety-soft, extraordinary emollient consistency that is so easy to apply on bare skin, on foundations and even over powder! It won’t cause any slipping and sliding or accentuate imperfections!

I used my fingers most of the times and I loved the final result! But with a small, synthetic, stippling brush it works just as well…

Why have I underlined the word “small”?! Well because this duo comes in the smallest pans I saw a contour or a highlight product to come in! You might have troubles using your regular size/usual contour and highlight brush, but with a bit of an effort you can make that one work as well! 

And trust my words, that’s a lot of pay off from that little extra-effort you put in as these two are absolutely worth every penny you pay for them!

And like all things Kevyn Aucoin I mostly saw online, as this is the first item I have ever tried but definitely not the last!, the decadent garnet packaging gives away the air of an incredibly glamorous makeup item, making makeup application an absolute pleasure!

Have you tried anything from Kevyn Aucoin, lovelies? What’s your favourite product?

See you soon, beautiful!

xx, Annie

Summer of 2014 – Bronzed, glowing, healthy summer look… Tip #1 Powders: Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder Luminous Light and Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder Palette

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bronze, dim light, glow, healthy, Hourglass, Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder Luminous Light, Hourglass Luminous Lighting Powder Palette, incandescent light, luminous light, radiant light, review, summer 2014, swatches

For me, this Summer it is going to be all about glowing, bronzed, healthy skin.

So, I decided to share with you what products and what tricks I use to achieve the amazing “Goddess” look. Bronzed, healthy glowing skin, vibrant colours on the eyes and lips, bronzing and contouring, self-tanning that is what my next posts will be about!

Let’s kick off this mini-series with Tip #1: Powders and the ones I am going to propose to you next are the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder, in shade Luminous Light and the gorgeous shades of the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder Palette.

I’m sure all of you beauty addicts out there have heard and read tons of reviews on the beautiful Hourglass powders already, that is why I am not going to go in depth with analyzing these products. But I am still going to underline the essentials.

The Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder in Luminous Light is described as a “champagne pearl”. On me it is a peach with white shimmers which doesn’t transfer on the skin but covers it in a “luminous” ( hence the name! ) veil. It really goes on mostly colorless on bronzed skin but since I am pale, on me it acts like a subtle bronzer, which is the main reason I bought it for.

The Hourglass Ambient Lighting Palette is, maybe, the most known and desired of their products. It really shook the beauty world mainly because it was a Limited Edition release. It was selling out like crazy! Good thing that by the end of last year Hourglass decided to make it permanent. That way I was able to move it from my Bucket List to the drawers of my collection.

The Palette contains 3 of the single powders shades, the particularity of it being that the shade in the middle Incandescent Light is a special shade created exclusively for this palette. The other two powders Dim Light and Radiant Light can be purchased separately.

Dim Light is more of a neutral peach beige type of colour, a pale, light beige with neutral to warm undertones and a very subtle satin shimmers. It matches perfectly my skin tone and I can use it all-over the face, light-handed though because of the shimmer particles.

Incandescent Light is the highlighting powder by excellence. A pearlescent, pale, light beige with neutral undertones and a soft ivory shimmer all in one product. It transfers amazing on my skin, creating a healthy awake look.

Radiant Light is described as a “golden beige powder”. It is the darkest of the shades, even darker than the Luminous Light ( see picture below! ). I use it to define my cheeks and on the places where the sun usually touches my face, which adds a subtle warmth to the look, that is very natural and flattering.

All the powders are paraben, talc, fragrance, nano-particle and gluten free and recommended for all skin types, if gently and strategically used.

I got mine here and they still have them in stock! Also available at Sephora.com!

See you soon, beautiful!

xx, Annie