My Make Up – Barbara Panagos, Benefit & More

I get asked a lot of questions about my make-up and what I use, so I thought it would be good to put together a whole post dedicated just to it and the process I go through. Since I am naturally blonde, I naturally have blonde eyelashes and eyebrows too, so one part of my body that I’m not comfortable with is my eyes. I like them because they are green, which is a rarer colour, but without mascara, I think they look really small and boyish, which is why I make sure I never leave the house without my mascara and eye make up on. I know it’s not good to think it, but without any make-up on my eyes, I feel really manly as my eyes are quite small and my eyelashes are almost invisible due to their colour.

You can really see just how much of a difference it makes in the 4 photos above. The first is obviously without any make-on, completely bare so please be nice, ha ha, the second is just with one coat of my Benefit Yes They’re Real Mascara, the third is with two coats of the mascara and the fourth is finished with a grey eyeliner from Avon which has shimmer in it and then my Bourjois Paris Smoky Eye eyeshadow palette. I use the mid grey towards the outsides of my eyelids and then the lighter silver on the insides to create a blended ombre effect. This is usually how I wear my eyes when I go out for the day, sometimes I do go out without the eyeshadow or I opt for a purple instead of grey, to give some colour to my face and make the green of my eyes stand out, but since I’m showing you my general make-up look, I often tend to go with greys as black is too harsh against my pale skin tone. You can see the products I use just below.

I wanted to include this as well, if you do try the mascara, please do not buy it on eBay. It’s filled with fake versions for around £8-9 and it’s a sticky tar substance which will probably irritate your eyes so much. If the price is too good to be true, it generally is. This mascara is pretty expensive for a reason, as it works so well, so definitely don’t get the fake one. It’s not the same in the slightest!

This is what the three shades look like when put on the skin:

These are the other eye products that I use:

1 – Topshop gold shimmer eye crayon.
2 – AVON double ended purple eye crayon, one is lilac and the other is darker.
3 & 4 – Barry M eye crayons in dark amethyst purple and sapphire blue.
5 – Topshop liquid purple eye cream shadow, it’s really dark and glittery.
6 – AVON brown/taupe eyebrow pencil.

You can see the shades of them on the skin just below:

Now onto my foundation and concealer. I used to use Bare Minerals about a year and a half ago, however it used to dry out my face quite a lot. I do have oily skin that’s problematic with spots and have had that since I was 14 due to a hormonal imbalance, so I also have a lot of scarring and marks on my face which make me really self conscious. I feel really upset about them on a daily basis and don’t ever like leaving the house or like people seeing me without make-up on. I know it’s probably not the best way to be, but it’s the only way I feel comfortable. I’m not a huge fan of liquid foundations because of how they feel caked on my skin and clog my pores, so I use a natural mineral foundation from Barbara Panagos. I was actually introduced to her make-up when I started going to a skin clinic for help with my face and I have never looked back since. It’s absolutely amazing, but quite hard to get hold of actually. It’s sold at skin specialists though like Harley Street Clinic in London and a few other places, but that’s about it. I really hope the brand gets more recognition to tell the truth because it’s wonderful foundation. You don’t even feel like you are wearing it and if your skin is good anyway, you can just wear a light coverage, but I like to build mine up for more cover.

If you are interested in what colour I use, I use Beige. It’s a light shade, I think it might be the lightest one they do, if not, it’s the second lightest and it’s my favourite make-up!

Since the foundation on its own doesn’t cover scarring and marks though, I use the Camoufleur also from Barbara Panagos. It’s a medical grade concealer and is made specifically for scars. It’s a paste formula, but it’s made from natural ingredients again and is good for the skin as well as covering it.

I always spend a while putting both of these on in the mornings if I’m leaving the house. I start with a cover of my foundation, then I cover the scarred areas with the Camoufleur, then I put another layer of the foundation on top to blend in the concealer and even things out a bit. Both of these really cover my face nicely and actually give me confidence to go out because without it, I’m always so upset. I’m actually being really brave making this post to be honest as I don’t like my skin on my face. I may look young, but it’s not in the best condition, but I know a lot of you want to know what I use, so it makes sense for me to show you, especially if you have problem skin and are looking for something that looks natural and covered at the same time. That’s why I love Barbara Panagos so much, I don’t want my face to look like it’s caked in make-up, I really do only like the natural skin look and Barbara Panagos does that. The make up can be expensive, it’s around £30 for a foundation, but I honestly don’t mind paying it as it lasts about 9 months and really works. I’m definitely not comfortable posting a before photo of my face without the make-up on though, sorry about that! But if you see how they look in the photo below and times it by about 10, you would probably get somewhere close…

This photo is a bit backwards as I covered one cheek and left the other one. So, the left photo is with the Barbara Panagos Camoufleur coverage and the right photo is without it, just wearing the Barbara Panagos fair foundation.

For my lips, I generally use a few different lip glosses and lipsticks. My favourites are the Rimmel Super Stay Tint Gloss and Lord & Berry Lip Stick Pencils and Lip Glosses. These are the lip products I use mostly in my photos on my blog. I always have a really hard time trying to find lip colours that actually stay put when I’m out, especially after eating and honestly, I haven’t found one yet. The Lord & Berry pencils last the longest, however they just come off in the middle after time and I am left with a lip liner effect which looks stupid. It means I have to keep topping up my lip colour after eating. So when I go out, I tend to wear glosses instead, as when they come off, I’m not left with any staining. You can see all of my favourite products just below! I have a couple of Mally lip glosses too which are gorgeous! I love the texture of those and the taste! I do have a top coat and undercoat from Lord & Berry too, to try and seal in my lip colours and keep my lips nourished.

1 & 2 – Rimmel Super Stay 10 Hour Tint Gloss (doesn’t last 10 hours).
3 & 4 – Lord & Berry Lip Glosses in Coral Pink and Red Berry.
5, 6, 7 & 8 – Lord & Berry Lip Stick Pencils in Cherry, Fuchsia, Scarlett and Vintage Pink.
9 – Lord & Berry Top Coat Gloss.
10 – Lord & Berry Nourishing Base Coat.
11 – Mally Lip Gloss in Pink.

This is how the colours look on the skin:

So that’s pretty much it, I will use the eyebrow pencil from Avon to make my eyebrows a little bit darker, but I’m not overly fond of it because it makes them a bit sticky. I’m looking into getting the eyebrow Brow Zings set from Benefit as it looks amazing! Have any of you tried it? But these are my products. I don’t have a huge amount of make-up as I prefer to stick to what I know works and what I wear often, which is just the foundation, concealer, mascara, eyeliner, eyeshadow and a few lip colours. You can see three of my different make-up looks below though from my blog photos, to see how it all comes together.

Full Make-Up 

Stronger lips with less on the eyes

Heavier eyes with nude lips

I would love to know what make-up you all use and what you think works really well for you! I actually only got into make-up a few years ago though and have been experimenting since then. I’m sure some of my older blog readers can see that in the beginning of my blog when I first made outfit posts, I never used to wear make-up back then. I’m glad I have found it now though as it gives me a lot more confidence!

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Speaking of confidence and appearance though, I was shown an info-graphic from Mya last week and I thought it was fascinating. Most of us have body hangups and don’t like certain parts of ourselves, those are often our stomachs, hips, thighs or breasts etc, but I was thinking the other day, I don’t think I have met anybody in my life time that was completely happy with their body. Everyone has always had an issue with something and I was wondering what makes us feel that way. I myself have issues, I’m not that happy with the length of my legs, I would prefer them to be a couple of inches longer at least and I would love to change my skin, I often think about having laser treatment to remove the scarring on my face instead of covering them with make up. I don’t dislike myself by all means, but I try to look after my body a lot more now and am happier with it, more so than I used to be. I used to be a lot bigger than I am now and there’s nothing wrong with that at all as everyone comes in different shapes and sizes, but for me personally, I just wasn’t happy. I felt tired a lot and generally unhealthy and I just felt quite upset within myself. Even though I am smaller now and older, I still often wonder is there actually such a thing as the perfect body?

When I think of the perfect body shape, my thoughts direct to ladies with some curve. I think Candice Swanepoel who models for Victoria Secret has one of the most gorgeous figures there is! She has the hips, the toned flat stomach, the boobs and long legs to go with it, she’s beautiful. That is just my opinion of the perfect body though, I know so many people who think Kim Kardashian or Kelly Brook are perfect and then others who would say Taylor Swift or Ashley Greene. Everyone’s opinion varies dramatically because the difference between Kim and Taylor is huge, they couldn’t be further from each other in terms of appearance.

This info-graphic just confirmed my thoughts, everyone has their opinions of who has the perfect body parts, but these have actually been put together and show what the perfect female and male looks like, based on everyone’s thoughts. What do you think of how they look? Because when I look at these faces, I find them to look a little strange and I wouldn’t necessarily class them as the perfect faces, would you? I know this can be a controversial topic and everyone in an ideal world should love what they look like because if everyone looked the same, the world would be a crazy place. But, in today’s world, which is almost entirely run on beauty and looks, is it really possible? Everyone looks to magazines (even though I know those are re-touched to the maximum after having been on shoots, so they are completely unrealistic) for inspiration on what they want to look like, what new products they can use to make themselves look better etc, I mean the beauty industry is a multi billion pound industry after all, so a lot of us strive to look the best we can. Men even do it more and more now, with their grooming products, waxing, tanning etc, Essex boys are mostly known for that, but is it such a bad thing to want to look the best we possibly can and want to change parts of our body? I think it can be healthy to feel those emotions, it makes you really want to try and look good, make yourself attractive and presentable, but it’s much like what we used to do in the animal kingdom, they do the same thing with their puffing up and rituals. You can see the info-graphic from Mya just below. I’d love to know your thoughts!

Written by Lorna Burford