W7 - Budget but brilliant!

If you had read my earlier post on how I struggle to get on with face powders (here) then you will know that my skin can be a bit of a pain for finding powders that have that 'you but better' effect. I want a powder that looks natural but also gives a good coverage. Then I came across this little beauty from W7 - W7 Sheer Loose Powder.

As you can see from the photos, the powder comes in a screw-top plastic pot that has holes in so you can dispense a small amount of product to pick up with the brush so it doesn't get too messy! I would suggest being sparing with it on your brush as it does have really good coverage and when I first tried it I thought it would be a bit rubbish and require loads to get any coverage and ended up looking slightly mental, so less is more!

It does come with a brush but I personally don't think it is that brilliant. The bristles are a bit stiff and not particularly soft and it doesn't seem to pick up the product brilliantly well so I prefer to use my Real Techniques Multi-Task brush to apply this. It is so simple to sweep over the face and blend across.

You can see from the pictures of it brushed on my hand that it gives a very soft appearance to the skin and goes far to cover imperfections such as those fine lines. I really do think it is a very good product and use it a lot. Especially seeing as I know it will be very cheap to replace!

W7 is a brand that is often stocked in Next (I bought my Urban Decay palette dupe by W7 from Next) but is also available on websites such as Fragrance Direct. They do some really good dupes of high-end products such as Benefit boxed blushers and OPI polishes. Ok, they aren't of quite the same quality as the high-end counterparts but they are very good for the teeny price you are paying for them. I would definitely recommend giving some of their products a try.

Battle of the Volume!

Sadly, I was not blessed with the best hair. I would love to have gorgeous thick hair that required next to know effort to look good. Instead I have quite thin, straight hair that can only be described as flat. Therefore I cheat, a lot!! I am a complete sucker for any hair care product that promises big volume and full looking hair. Most I'm disappointed by, a lot I absolutely love though. So I decided to pit two of my favourites against each other, it's Battle of the Volume!!

So here are my finalists; V05 Plump It Up Dry Backcomb Spray and Scwarzkopf got2b Powder'ful Volumizing Styling Powder. These two products are my go to items for creating loads of volume in my rather fine hair, and they are both so completely different from each other.

V05's Plump It Up spray is designed to spray on your roots to help add and hold lift to your roots, thereby giving the illusion of thick hair. It claims that using this can spare you from the pain of having to backcomb your hair, and more importantly the pain of brushing out backcombed hair the next day! I wouldn't say it 100% sticks to it's claims as I do like to spray it on to my roots in sections and then give them a quick backcomb before it dries, but it does go a long way to reaching that look. It holds the hair perfectly all night and does save me at least, a lot of time back combing the life out of my poor hair!

Schwarzkopf's contender is completely different from this. This is a powder that you sprinkle in to the roots of your hair (the bottle has a built in shaker so you don't accidentally pour too much on!) and then just rub in to the roots to give some lift. I had seen a lot of the adverts for this product and not really thought anything of it, but then one day I met one of my friends for dinner and her hair looked amazing and she told me about this little product, I've never looked back since. I was a bit sceptical as to whether a powder would actually help at all in creating volume, but I suppose dry shampoo is really only a fine powder and that is used to create volume all the time. And this really does work, without backcombing!! You do have to 'shoosh' it up every now and then, but it does do a brilliant job.

So, my overall winner.... I have to give the title to Schwarzkopf's Volumizing Powder. It's just so effortless to use and anything that saves me having to work through tons of conditioner to get backcombing knots out the morning after the night before is a pure godsend to me. But V05's spray is a very close second :)