They See Me Haulin’…Part Two

Haulin 22

I hope you enjoyed Part One. Let’s get cracking with Part Two…

Sigma Make-up Brushes

Brushes
From L-R: F30, E45, F15 and the F80

A bit of a brush-buying frenzy over here, but actually I am blameless because Julia started it. You know how it goes: best friend buys something you don’t think you want, but then you realise that you really really do, and then you end up going completely overboard and buy all. of. the. things.

Julia and I had both been desperate the try Sigma brushes after seeing all of our favourite overseas beauty bloggers raving about them, so when we found out there were available in South Africa, we lost our minds a little bit. Sigma make relatively affordable, yet high quality, make-up brushes, and I decided to treat myself to the following:

F80 Flat Kabuki for buffed foundation application. This creates the most incredible, airbrushed finish – not dissimilar to the Real Techniques Expert Face Brush.

F15 Duo Fibre Brush for soft application of powder and mineral products. I bought this to apply my Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powders (see below) but as it turns out it’s a bit small for full-face application, so then I bought…

F30 Large Powder Brush for even powder application. This huge great big fluffy brush picks up just the right amount of product and distributes it evenly all over the face. 10/10.

E45 Small Tapered Blending Brush for precise colour application into the crease of the eye socket. My MAC 217’s are all very old now and have lost their shape a bit, so they don’t apply colour in the crease as precisely as I would like. This solves the problem as the tapered brush gets right in there. Nice.

Available from Turquoise Studio.

Soap & Glory Hand Food Hand Cream

Hand Food

I recently ran out of my Kiehl’s Ultimate Strength Hand Salve, and decided to replace it with the much-hyped about Hand Food from Soap & Glory. I am a bit divided on this one because as much as I loathe the smell, I think it might be one of the most effective hand creams I have ever used. It should be noted at this point that I can’t stand overly sweet smells (vanilla, you offend me deeply) and this one contains marshmallow, of all things. The scent lingers and is so potent that it  manages to fragrance my entire office! However, the non-greasy, moisturising formula has completely won me over any my little mits have never been softer or smoother. Available from Rubybox for R169.95 from 125ml.

NARS Radiant Creamy Concealer in ‘Vanilla’

NARS Radiant Creamy Concealer

My number one beauty love is a radiant complexion and when I read about this concealer I knew I had to have it. This creamy formulation provides excellent coverage, ranging from medium to high, depending on how you choose to use it. I have been using it under my eyes and around my nose to even out my skin tone and conceal dark circles and redness. It is utterly incredible, honestly – I can’t rave about it enough. It is incredibly creamy, yet it doesn’t settle into fine lines at all, and banishes my dark circles without the need for my faithful Bobbi Brown Corrector first – I never thought that would be possible! It gives a lovely, glowy finish and it wears well throughout the day – I feel like I look much healthier and well-rested when I’m wearing it.

Bobbi Brown Pot Rouge for Lips and Cheeks in ‘Calipso Coral’

Bobbi Brown

I’m a huge fan of cream blushers, particularly the Bobbi Brown Pot Rouge blushers. These dual-purpose pots are intended to be used on both cheeks and lips, but I’ve always found them quite drying on the lips so I’ve stuck to only really using them on my cheeks. I was browsing in Edgars last week when I spotted this and I knew it had to be mine – I know we’re coming to the end of summer but I couldn’t help myself – the allure of coral was too powerful to resist. For the first time ever, I love the colour on the cheeks as much as I do on the lips – I have been prepping my lips with the Piz Buin In Sun Lipstick first to inject a bit of moisture, and then I press a little of this into my lips and the effect is gorgeous – subtle, but still summery and fresh. Love.

Hourglass Ambient Lighting Palettes in ‘Dim Light’ and ‘Radiant Light’

Radiant Light
Radiant Light
Dim Light
DIm Light

Last but certainly not least: the much-coveted Ambient Lighting Powders from Hourglass. These finishing powders feature state-of-the-art technology to recreate flattering types of light with the aim being that, when you wear them, you look as though you have been lit with an incredibly flattering shade, almost as though you have your own personal lighting technician. These powders capture, diffuse, and soften the way light reflects on your skin – they filter out harsh light and refine the appearance of your complexion (you had me at ‘complexion’). They don’t contain any talc, so they don’t leave that heavy, traditional powdery feel on the skin – instead they leave your skin looking luminescent, as though you have been lit from within. Dim Light is described as ‘a neutral soft beige that provides a perfect balance of warm and cool tones to blur imperfections’, whilst Radiant Light is described as ‘a sun-kissed golden beige that enhances the overall complexion with believable, subtle warmth’. I am still playing with them and trying to figure out the best way to use them, but for now my preferred method is to use Dim Light on my t-zone and Radiant Light on my cheeks. The effect is absolutely gorgeous and my skin looks almost airbrushed – I couldn’t be happier.

Sho! I feel like I need to have a lie-down now! Have you made any recent purchases that you’d like to share? I’d love to hear all about them…beauty enablers unite!

10 comments on They See Me Haulin’…Part Two

  • Justine

    I just discovered your blog! LOVE! I am soooo excited about the Sigma brushes, I am ordering today! How do you buy NARS products?

    • Camilla (author)

      Ah, thanks Justine! Rubybox stocks a few NARS products – unfortunately the selection is rather limited, but it’s better than nothing! All of my other NARS goodies have been brought back for me from the US/UK.

  • Alida Ryder

    Need that concealer and those Hourglass palettes. Where can I find them?

    I recently went on a bit of a beauty buying binge inspired by you lot and your beautiful faces and fancy-pants products. I bought the Stila foundation with the little concealer in the lid (can’t remember the name now) which is amazing and I also discovered Inglot’s AMC pressed powder. I normally HATE pressed powders but this one applies so beautifully and is completely translucent on the skin. Also, their eyeshadows are fantastic. Made a lovely little 4-colour palette for myself with gorgeous taupes and browns and have not used any other eyeshadows since. Definitely a new favourite brand.

    • Camilla (author)

      Hi Alida. Unfortunately the concealer and Hourglass powders are not available here – my boyfriend brought them back for me from the States. If you have any friends who live abroad, take advantage and ask them to hook you up!
      Well done on your buying spree!! You have made us very proud. I agree, Inglot is fantastic – I also cobbled together one of those 4-colour palettes not so long ago and I adore it. Enjoy! xx

      • Alida Ryder

        Gosh darnit. You and your imported products. 😉 I’ll def get someone to bring some back for me!

    • Camilla (author)

      Absolute BEST!

      • hildegarde_k

        Sorry, there was meant to be a part two to my comment. 😉 My friend from the UK recently brought me back a lot of stuff. Bourjois Happy Light primer and foundation, Benefit Coralista blush, Origins drink-up mask, Soap & Glory sugar crush body scrub, Barry M nail paint in Peach Melba and a LOT of samples. Also a few By Terry things that she wasn’t using anymore, eek! 🙂 P.S. I will def be getting some Sigma brushes, especially the F80 and the MAC 217 dupe.

  • Bella

    Hi guys, I am South African but have been living in the Netherlands for 12 years now. I follow a lot of beauty blogs and was thrilled to see such a lovely South African one pop up during a search, so you have a new Bloglovin follower!

    I am amazed and very pleased with how many more brands are available in SA since I left, but obviously a few still seem to be hard to find. I cannot get Hourglass or Nars in the Netherlands either, but I do a lot of online shopping from the UK and France, so I have quite the collection of these brands!!!

    So, for the benefit of some of your readers, I was wondering what the overseas webshop situation is in SA? I see South Africa listed in the ist of countries to which Selfridges, Net-a-Porter and Spacenk will ship.Also BeautyBay i think? Are the transport costs and import duties too exorbitant to consider this and maybe to provide links to such stores if

    Sorry for butting in, but since I live in a not very beauty conscious Euro country I know the frustration of seeing beautiful products you can’t have, and I manage to solve this by extensive online research followed by web shopping :). Of course there is no import duty for other EU countries which makes my life easier.

    I’m so excited to see what you guys come up with next!!!

    • Jules

      Hi Bella! This has always been a bit of a difficult subject for us – we hate that many of the products we feature are not available in SA, but at the same time the only way to get these brands to come here is to create demand through awareness. We know it’s probably frustrating for our readers but in the end, we have to be faithful to what we use and like which is why we choose to talk about these brands.

      Online shopping in SA has come a really long way in the past few years, especially for beauty products. In addition, there are many overseas websites that will ship here for free but customs duties can be a real pain. They are only supposed to apply to orders over R500 but apparently this policy is inconsistently applied and most orders will incur a tax of some kind on delivery. Camilla and I are fortunate enough to have a network of friends and family overseas who bring us products on a regular basis but of course this is not the case for most people!

      For those products that are available at sites that will ship to SA, we always try to link to them so that readers can order if they want to. We also advise that people place small orders to try to avoid or minimise customs duties, especially if international delivery is free.

      Thanks so much for your feedback. I would be interested to know about our readers’ experiences with getting beauty products shipped to SA from overseas – anyone willing to share?

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