BRONZER

From the Archives: Smashbox Fusion Soft Lights

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In which I shut my eyes and grab the first thing my hand hits, no matter how agéd.

Look how pretty she is!

Guess what though: she is usssselessssssss.

At first, I thought I was using the wrong sort of brush, even though it looked like a blush/highlighter brush… Grand, thought I, I’ll just use the chunky brush I’d been using for my Hourglass Ambient Powder, a nice, fat, mushroom type cluster of bristles.

Yeah, nah. Made no difference. Repeated passes of the brush took up little to no product. Was I not transferring enough of the darker hues? Made not a blind bit of difference. At one stage I ran the compact directly onto my palm and … wow, I’d never seen so little impact from a product, ever.

(Haven’t I? It’s worth thinking on…)

I went looking to see if they replaced it, but it doesn’t look like it. I think I may have hoarded some Too Faced Snow Bunny; I was going to say, I’ll do that for the next archival grab but I waxed lyrical about it over one entire decade ago. hashtag FFSL.

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Hey! Weather! I Got Work to Do, Yo.

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I know, I know — I know! But even here in Ireland, where we expect such things as hail and rain and sun and hail and rain in one hour, we are getting fed up.

It is feckin’ May, dammit. I have things I need to use and have not got much impetus to do so.

I know I am an amateur when it comes to self-tanning. I still abide by these now arbitrary rules as to when it is actually ‘summer’. Heck, I’d begun relaxing them in recent years to incorporate May, but look where we are with that. How’m I s’posed to check all this stuff I’ve got if there is not going to be A} sun to block or B} sun to illuminate the applied shine?

HEY WEATHER!There’s that bottle of Clarins Splendours Shimmer Body Oil {€37}, which falls squarely in the B category. Sure, I could douse myself from head to toe, and how I yearn to do so, but then what? Cover it up with a jumper? What a waste! I also have a tub of He-Shi’s Luminous Shimmer {€12.60}, not pictured because I think it ran away from home, and is heading for climes in which it can be shown to its best advantage. Cannot believe the bitch did not take me with it.

I suppose I could use La Roche-Posay’s Anthelios XL Invisible Nutritiv Oil SPF50+ {€22} when I go horseriding, and I think I will definitely try in on my face. I found the Anthelios XL Extreme Fluid {€19.50} to come over rather Chaplinesque  — not a good look.

At least I’ll get some use out of the above. But whither my massive IsaDora Bronzing Powder {€25.95}, much less my long-awaited and anticipated Bobbi Brown Shimmer Brick {€42.50}? Or the new Vichy Capital Soleil Beautifying Sun Protection Compact {€19.50} — which, okay, since we’re meant to ABSPFing* I should probs use anyway.

All this moaning would be moot if I would just crack into Cocoa Brown’s Night & Day Tan {€7.99}, giving myself the proper canvas upon which to apply all the shimmer. This shows up the tan immediately, with no development time, and showers off the next day to a lovely, light tan. Or so I’ve heard.

And I guess I could work my way into the whole glow-y vibe by using the Chanel Les Beiges Healthy Glow Sheer Powder {€48}.

CHANEL les beiges

I am happy just to look at the lovely cream lid. I am such a weirdy, but that is actually lifting my spirits. So elegant. So… so full of je ne sais quoi. No, I know quoi — it’s an inanimate object, uneffected by the vagaries of les temps.

Anyway, as I watch the rain piss down from the heavens, I feel a rebellious urge begin to stir within… Let the tanning begin! Weather bedamned!

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*Always Be SPFing

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Sweet Sixteen Minus Six: Too Faced Caribbean in a Compact, Snow Bunny

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Whoops! Here’s the number ten product in my revised Top Fave All-Time Products, which I should have posted last week. D’oh! Just as well, really, because there was a dead link within, and I tweaked this accordingly, with information as to how to order Sephora from Ireland, which is v v spendy. No wonder everyone goes bonks when in NYC or abroad…

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People often ask me, ‘Sue, do you ever buy beauty products anymore, and if you do, what would they be? ’The first one that always springs to mind is this cutie-pie compact from Too Faced: Carribean in a Compact Snow Bunny Subtly Sun-Kissed Bronzing Powder {which is now known in Sephora as Too Faced Snow Bunny Luminous Bronzer -ed}.

TOO FACED snow bunnyThat looks very ‘yum’ to me, like Neapolitan ice cream, which, as I suspected, is almost entirely an American construction. Here, you’ve go the bonus fourth flavour, which is probs the one far right, to swirl all over your face in order for it to look sun-kissed and glowy.

I was a bronzer loser when I started down the slippery slope of self-tanning, and this one was my salvation. Even I couldn’t mess this up. A perfect combination of lowlight and highlight, of gold + white + pink + fawn, this flows over the face like the sun itself, and during the Tanning Times, I never walk out of the door without it.

Imagine my distress when I began to run out of my trial version. It didn’t seem to be available anywhere in Dublin, and the brand no longer seemed to be represented by anyone in the PR world. So, on a trip to NYC, I lunged into a Sephora and grabbed up two. This number now seems optimistic: I’ve gone through the first one, and occasionally look at the other one in my drawer, with relief and trepidation.

At the time of this writing, I’ve rung all round town, to see whether a shop in town is carrying the brand, to no avail. Ah, well. There’s always online shopping, and as Sephora don’t have a store in the UK, much less in Ireland, you can order from France. Here’s a handy link, if you happen to read French; if not you can google-translate it.

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€26 from sephora.fr, plus shipping, which is — wait for it — €18 {merde!}/£22/$30

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A La Recherche du Temps Chanel: Soleil Tan Luminous Bronzing Powder

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In April, I did a Snap! Judgement on Soleil Tan de Chanel Luminous Bronzing Powder. I wasn’t too fussed. Then, I brought it along on my weekend away in its homeland, and it was a different story altogether.

It helps to be in sunshine? Like, consistent, every single day sunshine? Because when I wrote that I thought this was ‘too subtle’, I meant ‘this isn’t doing squat, I can’t see a difference’ — but that was because there was no light in the sky, or the air, or wherever, to reflect off of this.

I passed it around to all the women who were away for le weekend, and it became part of everyone’s morning ritual. Coffee, check. Croissant, check. Susan’s bronzy Chanel stuff, check.

So, sunshine helps, a wee bit of fake tan or actual colour from said sunshine helps. It helps to be hanging out with friends, and sharing it round, too. As an actual product, it is all that is pretty and feminine and warm and gorgeous.

Bonus: I wouldn’t usually countenance {ha, haaaaa} using a brush supplied with a cosmetic, but this is a good one.

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Soleil Tan de Chanel Luminous bronzing Powder is  €42.70/£34/$60

Sad Face: What to Put on It

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IRELAND 1 — CROATIA 3  I wish I didn’t care about the footie so much. It is an odd thing, all the emotional energy that one can generate/expend, even when one is watching a match on one’s laptop, much less when one is in an actual stadium. It’s a tribal thing for sure, what with the drums and the face painting, and I love every single second of it — except when it makes me want to puke, and my heart is beating like it’s going to go into arrest, and I scream obscenities at the top of my lungs as though I had no class a’tall.

So I am sitting here looking at stuff on my desk and just don’t even know. My face is so sad, what could possible help cheer it up?

I usually find Lancôme skincare products err too much on the side of their signature scent, but today, it is just the ticket. And their Hydra Zen Neurocalm Anti-Stress Moisturising Cream would have come in handy last night. I’ll have to remember it for Thursday when we take on Spain.

Bliss is always good, as a concept and as a line of spa-quality product. My poor peepers have just benefited from Triple Oxygen Instant Energizing Eye Gel, which is cooling, soothing, and yes, energizing-with-a-z… but they can’t unsee that third Croation goal.

Better to be sad and brown than sad and pale, and American brand Image Skincare do a great Facial Bronzing Cream in their Body Spa category. It smells coconutty, which is a good thing, and if there is the tiniest whiff of fake-tan smell, you only notice it for a quick second. {Feel free to insert comment re: quick second half here.}

I am losing the will, to be honest… and I am usually really good about prices and stuff, but eh, just don’t have the energy.

One thing that always makes me happy is Snow Bunny: Carribbean in a Compact from Too Faced. It is the absolute best bronzer on the planet, and the golden brown, wedded with the white, pink, and fawn shimmer creates a youthful, healthy glow. I had to stock up when I was in the States, and you will have to order it online — unless someone knows a Irish stockist? Could I have some good news, pleassssse???

That’s all I got, friends. Really gutted, but ah, sure, you never know, and Spain and Italy — anything could happen, yeah?

YEAH!