Estée Lauder Idealist Pore Minimizing Skin Refinisher

I finally decided to take the plunge and buy some Estée Lauder Doublewear foundation.  I can now officially say that it is the best foundation I have ever used. However this post in not about the amazing foundation but the serum that I bought whilst purchasing the Doublewear. I did not intend to buy a serum, but when the beauty consultant removed some of my foundation to do a colour match; it revealed my skin which is similar to the surface of the moon. She recoiled in horror and quickly recommended that I try the pore minimizing serum.  As soon as I heard `reduces pore size by 1/3’ I was sold and bought the 30ml bottle at £40 to try.

As soon as I got home (and after playing with my new foundation) I went online to have a look on the Estée Lauder website to find out what other amazing things this serum can do.

Here is what Estée Lauder say:

This fast-acting serum delivers our most dramatic skin resurfacing benefits-more efficiently than ever before.
With Idealist, your skin looks and feels like your ideal skin:

·         Pores appear 1/3 smaller-instantly, unbelievably soft and smooth.

·         Repairs the look of uneven skin texture, flakiness and roughness.

·         Smooth it on and instantly enjoy that soft, seamless, silky feeling you love.

·         See more clarity and luminosity.

·         Gives skin an overall more even tone.

So for the last few weeks I have been applying the serum morning and night between cleansing and moisturising (one pump each time) as directed by the Estée consultant. The serum itself is of a light texture with a fresh lemony fragrance, on application it makes the skin feel smooth and silky. 

So initially it is enjoyable to use, I found that it did help to repair flakiness and is a good refinisher. However as time went on I found that it did not give the same silkiness as it initially did and also my pore size did not reduce by 1/3 as claimed. I would say that this serum is in fact a primer with extras, as it smooths out the skin instantly (as claimed) however when I wash my face of an evening the smoothness washes away too. I found that this did not treat the large pore problem but only masked it like a primer. It did however treat the flaky skin problem without over exfoliating/moisturising so I did like it for that element.

I also found that using it all over my face was not of any benefit,  in fact it started to give me small white heads on my cheeks & forehead. This is probably due to the high content of silicone which can often create the problem you are trying to treat as some skin types do not react well to it. I now just use it on my nose which is the target area and have reduced it to one application in the morning.

Overall Thoughts:

PROS

- Fresh lemony fragrance with a light texture

- Good refinisher and helps to combat flakiness

- Creates a smooth finish and acts like primer

- Has antioxidant ingredients

CONS

- Did not reduce pore size by 1/3

- Did not treat the large pores but masked them (masked well but I bought a treatment not a primer)

- High silicone content

- Caused a few pimples to arrive

Overall I find that this works well on my nose to help with the oily/flaky balance as it is a gentle exfoliator. However I would not use it as a pore minimizing treatment all over my face as the pore minimizing aspect of this serum is in my opinion just a primer. I will use the whole pot as I have over half left but I am not sure I will re-buy

Have you tried this? What is you opinion?

Pointy Nails

Pah, Rihanna eat your heart out, if you can do the pointy nail trend then so can I!  It doesn’t matter that I have to carry out tedious manual household chores, oh no, style will prevail! Until I have to pick up dog poo that is, Let’s face it Rihanna never needs to don a marigold rubber glove.  She has no need to hesitate, I am pretty sure her mind is far away from loo scrubbing while she is getting her nails done.  

For me, one of my first thoughts was `how am I going to type? I don’t think my boss would be too keen on me using a rubber topped pencil to type with all day long’ having aired these worries with my husband, the satisfactory answer of `oh well’ was enough for me to go full steam ahead. Whilst spending the next 5 minutes trying to translate pointy to the Vietnamese lady at the nail bar, (I said POINTY, POINT-Y) I sent hubby off to pick a shade. He came back with what I would describe a `slut red’ the perfect match to my slutty pointy nails. I think the lady overheard as I’m sure she said `slutty, oh yes I understand’ I corrected her `yes pointy’ however she carried on regardless. Luckily I walked away with a perfect set of pointy red nails, well worth the £26.00 investment.

I can’t stop looking at my new nails, all shiny and new. However they do remind me of witch’s nails, the rubber Halloween ones. They have gone from being named slut nails to witchey poo nails, nevertheless they are still fab.

Reasons to get pointy nails

1)      You can go to a fancy dress party as a witch/vampire

2)      Good for scratching

3)      The `I might break a nail’ excuse works twice as good

4)      The most important reason – They just look SO GOOD

Sephora Primal Instincts Palette/ Made In China

During my Sephora shopping trip I picked up the Primal Instincts palette by Sephora. I wanted to try something which I would not get in the UK, but also get something that I would use frequently. 

Looking at the palettes available, I was tempted to go for the moonshadow baked palette because the colours were beautiful and shimmery, but I knew I would not use a shimmery shadow everyday.

So I opted for the primal instincts one that has 14 shades of browns and purples which is ideal for both day and night. I tend to stick to brown shades for day so this really suited me, but I have enjoyed experimenting by adding a little purple in the crease and lining the eye.

I would say that the shadows are of good quality, OK for everyday use and fairly long lasting. However since finding out that the palette was made in China I felt a bit disappointed. I am not a makeup snob or anything but I am always a bit cautious about buying make up from China as the quality is thought to be poor (hence the lower prices)

Doing a quick search online it appears that NYC, Smashbox & ELF amongst others are also made in China (some state to be made in PRC which stands for Peoples Republic China - used as a marketing tool so they don't have to say made in China)

Having now bought and tried it, I like it. Although I might not have bought it if i'd have known it was made in China. However now that I know the quality is good I would buy it again.

Does this put you off? would you avoid buying a cosmetic product because it is made in China?