Fair Skin Friendly: BB cream swatches vs NC15 Pt 2

Since my last BB cream megaswatch post was both more than a year and many, many BB creams ago, after receiving several BB and CC cream samples with Haulzilla, it was high time I stopped procrastinating and got swatching!

Swatching is challenging for me; I have short arms, lots of BB creams but minimal swatching real estate unless I want to stripe things up to my armpit and find an assistant who won't think I'm completely crazy (the neighbours already do), and worst of all, I have a point-and-shoot camera that likes to treat my in-direct-sunlight-skin as white balance.   

Take a look at the image below, which was the only picture I managed to get in direct light that didn't wash my skin out to complete white and give it an unearthly nimbus, like some sort of pudgy extra from the vampire scenes in Twilight.

Note: I did not edit this image in any way other than cropping out my scowling face.  I did not adjust the colours, or lighten the image, or anything else that would increase the freakish whiteness of that arm.  That's 100% pure natural pallidness.  Urgh.  Click for huge, if you're that brave and/or curious!

As a result, I look forward to swatching with the same excitement as an overdue dentist appointment; something that you dread with only the silver lining to look for of it finally being over.

Summer Holiday Haul!

This week I finally received some goodies in the mail that were slightly delayed by the summer holiday season, but I'm glad to have got them in my hot little hands at last.

If you're as interested in beauty products as I am, you're probably just as guilty of feeling the "I've got a package" thrill, so don't judge me for already opening the prettyandcute.com package-- I got it weeks ago, in fact 2 days after placing my order, so I was just waiting on the Korean package to arrive.

If you are wondering if that fabric is decorated with little green gremlins getting tanked at a kegger, you would be correct.  It was in my fabric stash and seemed ideally suited to a Canada Day/Independence Day-themed weekend, as I am pretty sure several of my neighbours are starting to resemble these little green guys after 4 days of partying.

Read on for the contents of my mega-haul!

Lioele Waterdrop Sleeping Pack Review

This week we're going to review a "water drop" product, specifically the Lioele Waterdrop Sleeping Pack.  Sleeping packs are a sort of wash-off mask type that you apply before you sleep and wash off in the morning.

It's also a "water drop" type of product, which literally beads up into water droplets on your skin.  To be honest, I am not really sure what the point of having water drops form on the surface of your skin, because I don't see how that is supposed to help retain moisture inside your skin.  So it seems really gimmicky to me, but I promised myself I would test it in both winter and summer conditions before I made a decision.

So here's the review!

Fair Skin Friendly: BB cream swatches on NC15 skin

Instead of a review this week, I thought it would be helpful to swatch my BB cream collection compared to MAC's Studio Fix in NC15.  Although there are a lot of BB cream swatches out there, most swatchers had deeper skin tones than mine, which made finding a match difficult.

To help out other similarly fair ladies out there find the right BB cream for them, I swatched all the BB creams in my collection, ranging from those I only tried in sample sizes up to those I purchased in full-size and wear on a regular basis.  I have tried many others in sample sizes, but unfortunately I tossed them as soon as I realized they were the wrong shade for me, not realizing that I'd be blogging my adventures in skincare one day. **Update:  I have recently swatched even more bb creams which you can find here.

I will warn you that the light on a mid-afternoon on a chilly day in the desert in February isn't as conducive to taking photos as I had hoped, but I also included photos in the shade which made the contrast between the different BB creams more obvious.

As you can see in the photos below, I have swatched the MAC Studio Fix NC15 along my arm, so each BB cream swatch can be visually compared to it.  The below image in the sun (on the right) is the most colour-accurate of all the photos.

Click here for a full size of the swatches, unblended, in the shade and in the sun. 

Although the above image taken in direct sunlight provides a better idea of the differences in the BB creams when they are unblended, the picture below with blended swatches is unfortunately a little blown out by the sunlight reflecting off my pasty, pasty white skin.  For that reason, I will be using a close-up of the below image taken in the shade for the swatch breakdowns.

Click here for a full size of the swatches, blended, in the shade and in the sun.

Now for the detailed breakdown for the below close-up: