Une Skin Matt Foundation Review

Below: both swatches rubbed in a little more to the skin.

Here is one of my reviews I have been meaning to do. I don't know when Une brought out this foundation or why nobody told me about it!...but I was rather delighted all the same.
I have been using Une Skin Glow foundation for a few months, repurchasing it a couple of times as I have been so impressed with it. If you've not read the review I did of that foundation, I said something along the lines of it is similar to a tinted moisturiser but with slightly more coverage. It doesn't break me out, it isn't heavy or cakey on your skin, and it is long lasting. Perhaps my only "issue" was that sometimes, after wearing it a while I can get a little shiny in my T-zone. This would happen if I were to wear no foundation, and is easily solved with a little translucent powder. I would also add that this is only really applicable in the hot summer months and after wearing it for the whole day.
Anyway, this is supposed to be a review about the Skin Matt foundation, so let's have a look at it.
(Scroll to the bottom for pros and cons if you don't want to read my waffling.) Packaging wise it's identical, and there was nothing that drew my eyes to it being any different to the Skin-Glow foundation, in fact, I thought that's what I had picked up until I used my brain and actually read it. I know matte foundations don't float everyone's boats and aren't anything to get excited about, but for me, a self-confessed oily girl, I need matte in my life. Now my skin is not as bad as I think it is, it is only really my t-zone that gets it's shine on, and even then, mostly in summer and it's probably not that noticeable to other people. I've never really looked at anyone myself and thought "you have a shiny face" so it's unlikely people are thinking that about me! But, as a result of my teenage years when it was more of an issue, I have been left thinking of myself as a dewy faced person and don't reach for products that promise me a dewy look. Maybe in 10 years this will be a different story.
Seeing that Une now did a matte foundation, and the previous positive experience I had had with the Skin-Glow made this an instant must-have product for me and am I happy I bought it? Well, yes.
First of all, it was super easy to find my shade as the numbers translate across the brand so I just had to find my number which is currently number 05. The consistency of the foundation comes a little thicker than the Glow foundation, it definitely has a more "foundationness" about it than a tinted moisturiser. This gives the advantage of offering slightly more coverage and consequently controls your shine for hours to come. It also comes with a disadvantage - it is slightly more difficult to work this into your skin. I find I need to work quite quickly or it has a tendency to turn a little cakey. I guess this is because being matte means it is drier and must be less oil based.
Overall, it isn't hugely different to the Skin Glow foundation and I feel like I don't prefer one over the other. I will continue using this one over the summer to keep my shine at bay, but I would consider going back to the Glow as the weather gets cooler, just for ease of use.
Une Skin Matt foundation is available in Superdrug and Boots priced at £11.99.
Skin Glow on the right, Skin Matt on the left.
Pros:

• Colour match is identical, consistency runs across the brand so it's easy to find your shade if you've used it before. Also, in larger Boots stores, there is quite a wide range of shades to choose from.
• Very long lasting, keeps you shine free for hours.
• Price - excellent value for an organic make-up product.

Cons:

• Little more difficult to work with than the Skin-Glow, doesn't glide on as easily. You need to be quick or it will cake.
• Shape of the bottle is not very user-friendly when you are near the bottom it gets quite difficult to squeeze it out, so you may find yourself wasting a lot of product.

UNE Cosmetics Tote and Makeup Pouch Deal

Une Cosmetics currently have a deal on in Superdrug where you buy any two products and you get a free Une goody bag which consists of a make-up bag and a tote bag. Both the tote and the pouch are made from 100% naural and organic certified cotton, in keeping with their brand ethos. I will store a few make-up items in the pouch and the tote is ideal for shopping or carrying books. I'd be lying if I said I didn't just buy two Une products purely to get hold of these bags. Of course I love Une, but I really didn't go in looking to buy anything from them. You know how easily this is done.
I picked up my two items which once I started pondering over which things to buy became more of a challenge than I thought. Oh I really want to try their creamy blushers...oh but the lipsticks/lipglosses, surely they're the best make-up product to have that is all natural since essentially you end up eating it anyway...ooh but I haven't seen this cleanser before...

In the end I went for the Radiance Refresh Night & Day "Micellar Cleansing Water for Face & Eyes" and a Skin-Matt Foundation in M05. Now I have been using both of these products for a few days now so I shall write separate reviews once I have a full opinion about them. So far I am happy with both products and I am glad to see the Une range branching out. Using organic and natural origin products are increasingly important to people so I was glad to see a make-up remover designed by a brand that specialise in natural make-up. The way I see it, if they know how to put make-up on, they know how to get it off again.

I previously wrote about the Skin glow foundation and how I was wary with my oily skin, I was pleased to see that Une have now released a matt foundation for us oily girls and I feel that I may get along even better with this foundation. It's easy to find your shade if you've used Une before as the number corresponds, so I was a G05 in the Skin-glow which makes me a M05 in the Skin-matt, easy.

Here's a little blob swatch and then rubbed into the skin next to it, left a little thickly applied so you can see what it looks like.

UNE Eye Pencils

I'm on an Une role at the moment. I loved the foundation so decided to branch out and try their eye pencils. If there's one part of your body that you might want to avoid products with man-made chemicals in it's probably your eyes, and these are the first eyeliners I've seen that are natural. I wear eyeliner practically every day, liquid on the lashline, and a pencil or kohl on the waterline, and have done for years, so I know I'm not sensitive to any chemicals, but it's never too late to try and be good to my body.

There are a few different eye pencils available, and this is where you need a beady eye because they all look the same, same white packaging, same square shape, and the concealer is the same format too which I found the whole idea of a pencil crayon concealer quite interesting. But anyway, thinking about it, eye pencils are one of the most annoying things to buy, they will be put closely together and get so mixed up, you reach for a kohl and you get an eyebrow pencil, I also don't enjoy sifting through them to find one that hasn't been blunted (real word?). That wasn't an issue with these pencils since they took me the best part of 20 minutes to remove the security packaging when I got home. Still, you might need to look at these closely since the only clue to colour is on one end of the pencil, the names give nothing away as they are random letters and numbers.
Below is the eyebrow pencil in B01. There were only two shades available, and since I'm blonde I went with the lighter shade. This was a bit of a mistake since my hair naturally is quite a dark shade of brown, and so my eyebrows are not really blonde. I usually find dark pencils a bit too contrasting with the light hair so I don't want to go any darker than my natural brow colour. The B01 pencil has a slight reddish tone, so I would say this particular pencil would be great for a redhead, or someone with naturally blonde eyebrows. I swatched it on my hand so see the colour but sadly I will have to sell this since it's really not a match for me, it's far too light. I may go back for the darker shade but have a feeling this may be too dark for me, and since the eyebrow pencils are all sealed and there's no testers, I might give it a miss. From the swatch however, I was pleased with the quality of this pencil, some eyebrow pencils have to be pressed quite firmly on the skin just to get any colour pay off. This usally means they stay put once they are which is important because you really don't want to see your eyebrows smudged half way up your forehead. But I liked the way it just glided on with minimal effort and was hard to rub off my hand afterwards. The colour is buildable, I just got a faint bit of colour to begin with, but it doesn't look like an obviously drawn on line, just feathered, evened out colour with no patches which would look very realistic on your brows. Not so in my case since it's about 3 shades too light but you know what I mean! I had a terrible time opening these pencils, and consequently ended up breaking this one. This is the Absolute Blacks KOHL which was available in two shades, this one and a very similar looking one which I think had a hint of blue, but it was difficult to tell the shade just from the end of it. This is a very highly pigmented pencil, it has a very soft formula, similar to kajal, which is why it broke so easily, but it means this goes on like a dream, so soft! Initially, I really liked how easy this was to apply and achieve a dramatic look if you wanted, but a few hours in and I was not so pleased. I'd only worn this in my flat, and a couple of hours later, I looked in the mirror and I looked like I'd been to sleep in my makeup. Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but it was smudged up, to the point where I would be very wary about wearing this out in public. I've used a lot of kohls in the past, by many different brands and never experienced this, so it's a little disappointing, since this is the product I really hoped would work for me.

I'm not one to dismiss a product too quickly though and I gave this another try today, this time applying just to the waterline, I think I put a little on the lower lashline last time instead of liquid liner, and it seemed to fare better when not applied directly to the skin.

The third and final eye pencil I got was this Sfumato Eyes Pencil. Now I don't know what Sfumato means to you, but for me, it means a great quality eyeliner, one that is kind on my skin, and doesn't give me panda eyes. I went for S11 (I have to add at this point how much I really don't like the name format of Une's products, it makes them very unspecial and hard to remember) which is a deep dark brown with ash tones. I use this in the same way I would use the kohl, but I was very pleased to find this does not move about of it's own free will, but stays nicely in place underneath my lash line. It doesn't last as long on my waterline but I think that's pretty obvious, the only colour that stays there for long enough is black, any other coloured eyeliner I've used there has generally faded after a couple of hours, maybe less.There were also some glittery pencil liners available which looked fun and perhaps next on my to-buy list.

Has anyone else tried any of these pencils?
Also, please get in touch if you want to take the blonde eyebrow pencil off my hands as I might as well sell it.!

UNE Skin Glow Foundation Review

In my last post I mentioned the UNE Skin Glow Foundation as my weapon of choice for my FOTD. Back in March, UNE received quite a bit of publicity as they were just launching and reaching out to new customers. Things got a little quiet since then, and admittedly, I hadn't heard of this brand until around a fortnight ago when I found the makeup stand at Westfield in Shepard's Bush, and came home with a bottle of this, bought partly on impulse, and searched the brand for more information.

Now I'm going to write this review based purely on my experience with this foundation and ignore what I've read, because so far, I don't feel like this brand has been painted in a positive light which with my experience isn't rightly so, because I have nothing really negative to say.

So a quick overview of UNE, they are a spin-off company from Bourjois, but differ quite considerably to Bourjois, or any other make-up brand in that they are a "natural" cosmetic company. I think if any brand is deserving of that title, it would certainly be UNE since in the foundation alone, 98.2% of the ingredients are from natural origin, 17.1% are from Organic Farming, and many of the products, if not all, are free from parabens.

There may be a brand comparable, but when you walk into Boots, that's not neccessarily obvious, and that's what singles this brand out, is it's accessibility. Since buying the foundation in a large branch of Boots, I have now seen a stand in my local Superdrug, which I was pleased to find, and glad that this brand is reaching out as accessible and affordable. I opted for shade G06 which I think is around a MAC NC20-25. The foundation was priced at around £13 for 30ml of product. Not cheap, but then not vastly expensive either. It's mid-range, cheaper than a lot of foundations I've tried and a price I'm willing to pay to not put a cocktail of chemicals on my face. Don't get me wrong, I'll slap on MAC like it's going out of fashion, but I do think it's important to give my skin a breather from time to time, and I am one of those paranoid people who's a little afraid of chemicals. If I could choose a product from another and the only difference was the list of ingredients, then I'd obviously plump for the one without the artificiality, and I'm sure I'm not alone. So I applaud UNE for going against the grain and releasing an authentic natural range.

The real test is in how this make-up holds up. It's all well and good being natural, but if this make-up is gone without a trace in 2 hours, it's somewhat useless. NOT the case I'm glad to say! This is a "glow" effect foundation, and I am a combination/oily skinned client, so we are not traditionally a match made. I usually need something with "matte" in the title, particularly this time of year, late spring to early autumn and anything "glowy" or "dewy" on my skin usually=shiny. If I don't powder, I do notice a shine, but it's actually not something I can't live with, I don't feel like my skin is suffering under there, it's just a very natural look. It makes me feel like I can embrace the natural oily state of my skin, because it is still less oily than usual, and it evens out my skin tone, minimises my pores, all the while looking natural.

Here we have a blob. I wanted to give you an idea of the consistency and texture of the foundation. It looks like any other at this point I suppose.
Rubbed in a little, it's actually very smooth to apply, even on the dry skin on my hands it doesn't pick up any skin, just smooths over for an even texture. It's very creamy yet light feeling.

And rubbed in almost entirely, this is pretty much the coverage on my face, minus the cracks because my hands are a little dry lately. A little blob goes a long way which is another plus point, I don't like to apply a lot of foundation, I want a foundation that is going to last me a good few months so it's good value, and this definitely does the job.

So is this foundation for you? If you want heavy coverage then no, definitely bypass this, but if you enjoy make-up and want to go for a lighter, natural look than normal without skipping foundation it might be worth a look. I think this is great for people just getting into make-up aswell, people who might not have tried any foundations before, or if you have problematic, sensitive skin, this might be suitable as it's free from harsh chemicals. Even those make-up lovers who just want something for their down-days where you still want to wear a foundation but without the effort of a heavy coverage face, since this is almost like a tinted moisturiser. Since buying this, I've also gone back to my parents house to visit and lost my moisturiser somewhere in transition, so I use this after toning and it's become a make shift moisturiser/foundation. I love a good multi-use product.

FOTD using UNE Foundation and Sleek Jewels palette and NOTD 1/9/2010

It feels like England is clinging on to Summer now with a little burst of sunshine, even though technically it's September, we're now officially Autumn. This time of year usually means finding transitional makeup, makeup that's suitable for both seasons. For me, that usally means finding rich, plummy, golden colours, at least for my eyeshadow. A palette I find perfect for those rich, beautiful colours is the Jewels palette by Sleek, so I dug that one out and will show you a quick FOTD.I used the champagne gold colour all over the lid, it's a perfect wash colour, and probably one of only two colours I can use all over the lid. Then for the crease I picked out the plum/purple shade, and used the silver on the inner corner. Still a pretty neutral look, but the purple livens it up a little. Sleek is fantastic for their pigmented eyeshadows, they look so multi-dimensional once applied, so much depth to the colour. The only problem is finding a palette with an entire range of colours that I can wear. I wish they would bring out a neutrals palette, like the Urban Decay Naked palette, it would be pretty near perfection in a £5 palette. Close up of the eyes - I used Sleek Jewels, No. 7 Amazing Eyes eyeliner, (I found another liquid liner that actually compares to my HG Loreal Superliner!) it was given to me by my Mum since she couldn't apply it, and it's surprisngly very good, and I'd say pretty fool-proof too, if you're a shaky-hand-eyeliner-applier as I am.

Other products I used

EYES: Bourjois 1001 Lashes mascara, topped with Rimmel Volume Flash the Max mascara; Eyeshadows primed with TFSI;

FACE: Une Skin Glow Foundation in G06 (Love this, review to come soon); Rimmel Clarifying Powder, MAC Refined Golden bronzer.

LIPS: Maybelline Colour Sensational Lipstick in Rose Pearl.

And not to leave my nails out, since I really love this colour, I painted them in Barry M's Racing Green, which is truly a gorgeous colour in it's own right, it reminds me of old Jaguars, not just the colour but the finish aswell. I decided to turn it matte out of curiousity, and it turned out pretty good. It's a slightly irridescent colour, and you can still see the other dimensions to this colour, just in matte form. I'm going to be sporting this a lot through Autumn I think. I prefer dark colours for my nails so I'm not going to miss the summer pastel shades too much.

What are your favourite colours for autumn?