Makeup is probably my favourite thing in the world. I’m probably more interested in makeup than I am in clothes, but I never felt like I fit into the world of beauty journalism/beauty blogging etc and the plus size fashion world was a more comfortable place for me so here I am. But as you know if you follow me on social or if you know me IRL, I talk about makeup a lot. If I had to express what kind of makeup I like to wear, it’s full coverage base with a shimmery glow, matte opaque lipsticks, matte eyeshadows. But I’m trying to break out of that.
Now Glossier ships to the UK, I decided it was time to try more than just their excellent Boy Brow, and see if their makeup works for me. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out Glossier’s thing is makeup for girls who don’t want or need a lot of makeup, Cool Girl Makeup, natural beauty makeup. I don’t really fall into any of those categories, but in my quest to mix up my makeup routine and break out of my heavy coverage 100% of the time, I decided to give it a try.
In this photo I’m wearing the Perfecting Skin Tint in Light, Stretch Concealer in Light, Cloud Paint in Dusk, Haloscope in Quartz, Boy Brow in Brown and Generation G Lipstick in Crush. I’m also wearing an Urban Decay mascara as Glossier haven’t released a mascara yet.
As you can see, this is a very different look to, for example, my usual full face.
(For reference, in the photo below, I’m wearing It Cosmetics CC cream, It Cosmetics undereye concealer, Urban Decay Naked 3 eyeshadow palette and mascara, Kevyn Aucoin contour powder, Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit for highlight, Tarte blusher (which I can’t find on a UK site…), Hourglass Ambient Lighting powder, Anastasia Beverly Hills lipstick and NYX brow pomade applied with a hard angle brush. So, as you can see, quite different.)
Overall thoughts: I… actually love the look of my face in this super pared-down, natural makeup. I’m surprised by how happy and confident I felt with a seriously reduced amount of makeup. I wore this face for a long day of filming a video at work that involved going into and out of lots of shops and changing rooms and stomping around Oxford Street, getting extremely sweaty. Something I really liked about this face was that as the day wore on, I didn’t look loads worse than I did when I began the day. I sweat a lot, like enough for me to be considering Botox injections in my face to prevent it, and I find that on a day-to-day basis, I begin the day looking fresh and glowing in my makeup, but by the time I get to work, my sweat from public transport and fast walking has combined with my base makeup and powder and left me looking a bit wilted. The Glossier face didn’t do that at all and every time I saw my face in a mirror I thought how fresh and nice I looked.
On an individual basis:
This is much lighter coverage than I’m used to, and I liked it. I get a couple of spots every month around my period (which is… right now) but apart from that I don’t have particularly problematic skin. The reason I like wearing base makeup is to even out my redness, and I have very pink cheeks. This gives very little coverage, but neutralised my redness nicely and left my skin feeling really soft and chilled. It just made me look healthy and pleasant without being too done. If you need coverage from a base product, I would absolutely not recommend this, but if you’re trying to wean yourself off full coverage, then I definitely do.
The best under eye concealer ever invented is the It Cosmetics one I’ve started wearing since buying it in New York. That, however, is not suitable to be used as a concealer anywhere else on your face (in my opinion) as it’s just so brightening. I wanted a concealer that would work on my under eyes but also be appropriate for the are around my nose and to cover spots when they appear on a monthly basis, and this does that really well. It comes in a pot which will become bad for me at some point when I’ve used a lot of it because I have very long nails so will start applying with a synthetic brush when it’s further down in the pot, but I liked being able to apply it with my hands. The consistency is quite wet so it’s really good on dry areas but if you have oily skin maybe it wouldn’t set as well. In the first photo in this post I’m wearing it on my under eyes and other areas of the face and I think it worked well, and I would definitely use it in conjunction with my It Cosmetics concealer when I’m doing heavier coverage.
A couple of people on my social (hi, Autumn!) are very passionate about the Cloud Paint. I generally only wear powder blusher as I’m obsessed with the idea that gel or liquid is hard to blend and will stick to the dry bits of my cheeks, so I took a chance on Cloud Paint on the recommendation of friends. I actually love it, and for me this might be the surprise standout item of my order. I’m wearing the shade Dusk which is a tawny pink, but it comes in three other shades so I might try those too. I found you need only a small amount, and that it was really easy to apply with my hands. It didn’t dry too quickly for me to be able to blend it by patting it around with my fingertips, and it just gave a really nice, natural flush.
If Cloud Paint was my surprise fave, the Haloscope highlighter stick was my un-surprise least fave. I’m going to keep using it and see if I learn to love it, but I found it had very little effect. I’m always conscious of stick products swiping off the products underneath them on my cheeks (this is how my buddy Alice ended up with a Milk Cosmetics highlighter stick which I bought originally for myself but then bought the same shade in a Becca powder form instead, knowing I would use that more). For that reason, I rubbed the stick onto my fingertips and pressed it onto my cheekbones that way. I found it left me dewy-looking but no real discernible highlight. Probably nice for a summer holiday, and I do hope it’ll grow on me, but not my fave.
This was the first Glossier product I tried, and honestly, it’s kind of spoiled other brow products for me. Between running out of my first one and Glossier shipping to the UK, I tried different brow stuff at different prices. Some of them I quite liked, but honestly? I just wanted more Boy Brow. My heavy eyebrows are one of my defining facial features, so obviously I don’t need a lot from a brow product. This means Boy Brow works super well for me as it sets my brows in place and adds a bit of colour in the sparser bits. I much prefer this to heavier pomades as I find it so hard to get my brows to look even with products like the NYX Tame & Frame that I’ve been using. I know eyebrows are meant to be sisters, or cousins, whatever, not twins, but when I’m going to the trouble of using a heavy-duty product and a hard angle brush, I want them to look pretty perfect, and they just don’t. So I like the low-maintenance nature of Boy Brow that makes my brows look naturally great.
80% of my lipsticks are liquid mattes and the remaining 20% are solid mattes… until now! These are sheer mattes, so they leave a solid colour but it’s a super light wash, and I just love how pretty the shade Crush is on my lips. It felt so comfortable and light and lovely and it was so nice to be able to reapply without a mirror and not worry about a super intense shade ending up in the wrong place or making my lipline look wrong. I also have the shade Cake, which is very close to my actual lip colour, and Zip, which is a sweet poppy red.
In conclusion: these products are the complete opposite of the products I usually go for… and yet I loved them, and loved the way they looked and felt on my face. I’m actually really glad I bought into the Glossier hype because now I know I like a much, much lighter look as well as my usual heavier, glowier, more-product look.
FYI, if you use this or any of the Glossier links in this post for your first order, you’ll get 10% off and I’ll get some store credit. This isn’t sponsored, it’s just their referral programme!