All Dolled Up

April 13, 2016

The Beginner’s Budget Beauty Bag

It’s easy for us to forget that many of the things we take for granted, like knowing where to apply bronzer (on the high points where the sun hits your face), which drugstore brand makes the best bases (Bourjois) and how to make a red lip last all night (use a matching lipliner, apply a few thin layers and blot in between), aren’t so simple for some women. Camilla and I live, eat and breathe makeup and skincare but for lots of you, the industry and the related media is so confusing that you don’t know where to start. To…

April 8, 2016

Jules’ Evening Skincare Routine

My Evening Skincare Routine | All Dolled Up

It’s taken me a while to get into a groove with my evening skincare routine, mostly because I have the attention span of a goldfish and like to try lots of different products all the time. It has left my skin a little frazzled though, so a few months ago I decided to regulate my routine in an effort to rebalance my oily/combo/dehydrated skin and the consistency has really paid off. Here are the simple steps I follow and the products I use in them:

April 6, 2016

March Favourites 2016

Jules’ Favourites: Illamasqua Gleam in “Aurora” Revlon Volume + Length Magnified Mascara Smashbox Step-by-Step Contour Stick Trio Skin Creamery The Everyday Cream Chanel Rouge Coco Shine in “54 Boy” Camilla’s Favourites: Elizabeth Arden Grand Entrance Mascara ghd Natural Bristle Brush 2 (35mm barrel) Bobbi Brown Skin Foundation Stick (Warm Beige) Estée Lauder Double Wear Waterproof All Day Extreme Wear Concealer Safeway Battery-operated Beauty Trimmer

April 4, 2016

Quick Reviews #16

Smashbox Step-By-Step Contour Stick Trio Jules picked these up a few months ago during our V&A Waterfront Beauty Haul and has been raving about them ever since. I decided to give them a go recently, and I am just as smitten as she is. The set contains three matte crayons: a contour shade, a bronzing shade and a highlighting shade. The contour shade is particularly lovely as it contains no red/orange tones whatsoever – it’s a brown/taupe shade which mimics the shade of a natural shadow, thereby allowing you to sculpt your face in a subtle, realistic way. The bronzing shade is…

March 30, 2016

Autumn Beauty Update

With the arrival of Easter Weekend came the much cooler weather in Cape Town, much to my disappointment. I’m a summer girl through and through but as much as I despise autumn and winter, it does give me the opportunity to introduce some new products into my beauty routine. Here are the items that will be getting some more use over the next few months: Skin My face is already starting to show signs of worse-than-usual dehydration so I’m upping my skincare game to include more hyaluronic acid, glycerin and other humectants, as well as hydrating oils. I have a…

March 18, 2016

Products I’ve Hit Pan On

Sounds a bit random, right – who wants to see a pile of beat-up old makeup? Well, the idea of this post is to show you the powder products I actually use the most and offers some insight into some of my favourite makeup items that don’t always make it onto the blog:

March 16, 2016

Three Ways to Depot & Store Your Lipsticks

How to Depot and Store Your Lipsticks | All Dolled Up

I am not a crafty person. I don’t like DIY projects, I could think of nothing worse than making a scrapbook and I hate de-potting my individual eyeshadows into palettes. I love the idea of being this organised and having everything in a neat colour-coordinated system but I don’t have the patience to actually do it. If I was a little bit more industrious though, I would depot my (fairly extensive) lipstick collection using one of these methods:

March 14, 2016

Quick Reviews #15

Elizabeth Arden Grand Entrance Mascara* In a word: brilliant. This mascara has absolutely blown me away – so much so that it currently holds the top spot on my Favourite Mascara List (previous title holders have included the Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara, Clinique High Impact Extreme Volume Mascara and the Estée Lauder Sumptuous Extreme Lash Multiplying Volume Mascara). The design of the wand is really interesting – it has a gentle c-shaped bend with a spiky nodule (thats an official term, by the way) on the end. The motivation behind this design is to enable you to get maximum volume,…

March 11, 2016

What to buy from Urban Decay

Products shown Naked palette Naked 2 palette Eyeshadow Primer Potion 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil in Whiskey, Bourbon and Loaded Naked Skin Concealer All-Nighter Makeup Setting Spray Revolution Lipstick in “Jilted” Other products mentioned Naked 3 palette Naked Smoky palette Naked Basics palette Naked 2 Basics palette 24/7 Waterline Eye Pencil 24/7 Glide-On Lip Pencil De-Slick Makeup Setting Spray Chill Makeup Setting Spray UD Gwen Stefani Collection Launch details The first store will open in June 2016 in Sandton City, followed by a concession in a department store at Eastgate. They are bringing in the full product range as well as selected forthcoming…

March 9, 2016

What’s the difference between ANR and MRC?

Difference between Advanced Night Repair and Midnight Recovery Concentrate | All Dolled Up

There are lots of people who ask us about the difference between Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair (ANR) and Kiehl’s Midnight Recovery Concentrate (MRC). They are actually very different products but until you’ve tried or used them, it’s easy to get them confused. Here’s the breakdown: