Had a good read of the thread after a few days browsing brands’ sites and watching a load of beauty-tube after ages ignoring makeup. I suddenly decided to look into what’s cruelty-free and while those sell in China aren’t considered to be so, most I’ve looked into are fine otherwise (L’Oreal and some others are pushing well for change too). Also I hadn’t bought anything for about two years and still have stuff from when I was 14 so everything’s out of date and it turns out Superdrug is my new friend, 3 for 2 offers and all. Their B skincare range even has some of the ‘proper’ anti-aging stuff like hyaluronic acid, niacinimide and one other I forget now so at some point I’m thinking of trying their stage 2 stuff.
The channel Hot and Flashy someone linked above mentions the best-working anti-aging things like those and peptides, ceramides, retinol, coenzyme and matrixyl in her hooded-lid video. Of course as soon as you look for stuff with those in, they’re usually £50 a pot and I balk at that. Gotta wonder how effective one by Superdrug at £12 is in comparison, but still, whole set is the same price as one thing.
Also there’s this guy giving scientific info on things like micellar water
http://colinsbeautypages.co.uk
So far on watching makeup videos, I’ve rediscovered Wayne Goss who I love and was the first beauty guru I found besides Zoella. He gives so many good tips. I fell down the rabbithole of Sophdoesnails, Madeyewlook and Kandee Johnson, I love a good body paint, there’s so much you can do with a face and a load of colour.
I finally ordered a few things from Besame, the vintage-inspired brand after first drooling over them years ago (lucky to have free or low-rate international shipping from some, sadly not all) and the mineral brand I found years ago, Lily Lolo, as I needed a new foundation and so far have just tried their BB cream. It’s nice, though didn’t work so well when I didn’t put it on immediately after moisturiser (it was hours later, I wasn’t in the mood for makeup in the morning). Found a one-woman band
https://www.ve-cosmetics.com who does all the eyeshadow and a sugar lipscrub that smells so well of lemonade.
Has anyone used those new style brushes, the ones Artis came out with, precision brushes I think they’re called? The bigger ones look like soft hairbrushes, the smaller like toothbrushes. Revolution has them cheaper and Primark did them too. I hadn’t even used a beauty blender before now, but I had a voucher for Marks and Spencer so got one on the way (I have a load of brushes, but I use my fingers a lot too).