Dainty Doll Blushers

Happy Saturday everyone! And today is also the 1st of June - *insert generic statement about how fast time passes here*...

Dainty Doll may be my new obsession. So far I've reviewed the lipsticks (HERE) and the cream blushers (HERE) but today it's time for my favourite product of all - powder blushers. The Dainty Doll blushers have quite literally transformed my face and the way I feel about blush. It was never a product I liked or took any interest in. Until now.

 Dainty Doll blushers are absolutely spot on and perfect for pale skin, as you'd expect. The range of colours is quite diverse, as shown above, but each one is perfectly pigmented whilst still subtle enough to make porcelain skin look stunning. I can't say enough positive things about these products, they're blimmin amazing!

L>R I bought:

001 Hippy Shade, 002 My Girl, 003 Money Talks and 004 You Are My Sunshine.

This is 001 Hippy Shake - which is (now) my all time favourite face product. As you can see, its a very pale lilac blush which is something I never knew existed before, nevermind tried! When it arrived I was terribly skeptical about how I would use it and the way it would look on my face. I use it almost as a highlighter really, over the top of another blusher (usually Money Talks) on the cheekbone to brighten up the look and add a extra little je ne sais pas... and it looks fabulous. It's absolutely perfect for my skin tone, makes my face look almost doll-like (heh, Dainty Doll) and just perfect. Here's a photo of Hippy Shake worn over Money Talks:

I hope this shows the subtle brightness it can bring to your face. I wear this on a daily basis to work as it's understated enough to be work-appropriate and it's really nice with a pink toned lip colour too. Definitely a winner!

Here is shade 002 My Girl - a gorgeous baby pink with a tiny bit of shimmer in it. This is actually very similar to the Dainty Doll Cream Blusher Paper Roses, except in powder form. Again, it's not a colour I wear every day but it is a nice tone to have in my collection, especially for Spring and Summer.

Now for the first blusher I bought from Dainty Doll, and the product that started my obsession! Here is 003 Money Talks, a nice pale taupe/beige shade. I originally thought I would use this as a contour colour because it's not a typical blush colour, however as a test I applied it to my cheeks as a blush and it actually looks much more like a deep rose pink once it's on my face. I can't explain it, nor can I photograph it to show it to you. As I said above, my staple products for work tend to be this blusher with Hippy Shake over the top - it just gives a gorgeous effect. All the sane, Money Talks alone looks very subtle, sophisticated and beautiful.

Last but by all means not least is You Are My Sunshine. As soon as I opened this up I thought a mistake had been made because it is so similar to the Dainty Doll Orange County Girl cream blusher, which is a dupe for Nars Orgasm. You Are My Sunshine is a teensy bit darker in colour and the gold shimmer is more obvious than it is in Orange County Girl, which makes this one a bit more appropriate for a night out or winter wear. It's a really stunning blusher though, and the gold shimmer means you don't have to wear a highlight so it's a one stop shop for cheeks!

As you can probably tell already, I am a total fangirl when it comes to these Dainty Doll blushers! They are hands down the best blushers I have ever used, make me so excited to apply my make up each day and have changed the way I see my face and the way my make up looks each day. I am so grateful to Nicola Roberts for creating blushers for pale skin, only now do I realise how wrong every other product has been for my skin tone!

If you're a porcelain princess like me and haven't tried these yet, you just have to! They're priced at only £1.99 each (RRP £13.50) from Fragrance Direct HERE and you at the very least have to experience Money Talks and Hippy Shake. I am so obsessive about these that I want to buy at least one more of my two favourites in case they get discontinued! I would even repurchase at full price to be honest.

Have you tried anything from Dainty Doll before? Do you like the look of any of the blushers I've featured today?

xx

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Dainty Doll Cream Blushers

This post has been a long time coming! If you're a follower of Bee's Knees you'll know that I went a little crazy over the past couple of months with purchases of Dainty Doll products from Fragrance Direct. I've already reviewed the lipsticks HERE, but today I'm reviewing the cream blushes I bought. 

Dainty Doll is a brand that caters specifically for pale skinned girls, like me, and I find their blushers across the board are well pigmented but are the perfect shades for pale skin because even heavily applied they aren't too bold. The cream blushers are best applied either with your fingers or with a stippling brush as opposed to a traditional blush brush - I use the Real Techniques Stippling Brush before blending in with the Buffing Brush.

Left > Right: 001 Paper Roses,002 Orange County Girl, 003 Billion Dollar Babies

I have found every shade of these cream blushers to be incredibly good quality, they last all day and are easily blended into the skin to give a nice subtle but made up look. The packaging is gorgeous with a handy mirror for on the go application. Please note that my swatches show the products blended in to the skin because this is how I wear them on my face.

This is Paper Roses, a gorgeous pretty pale pink that is ideal for Spring! I find wearing this adds that 'just pinched' look to my cheeks without making me look too made up. This isn't my favourite of the cream blushes but it's a nice colour to have in my collection. 

Here is Orange County Girl, my favourite of the cream blushers. As you can see, this has some gold shimmer running through it as well as the peachy pink colour. I've read a lot of bloggers comparing this to Nars Orgasm and although I haven't tried Nars myself, from the photos I've seen online it does seem incredibly similar but a more subtle shade suitable for porcelain skins. This is a really easy blush to wear - because it's also a highlighter you just need to brush it across your cheekbones to add some dimension to your face and brighten your cheeks up.

Finally this is Billion Dollar Babies. I have been using this as a contour colour because it's a matte pale taupe so ideal for this purpose! It's absolutely brilliant to contour with - because it's a cream it's a dream to blend into the skin and not so dark to be obvious. As a pale girl I have struggled to find suitable shades to contour with but this is spot on and I would recommend it to anyone else who's stuck for a contour colour!

I am really happy I bought these cream blushers, they're all very good and beautiful in their own way. Orange County Girl is my favourite but Billion Dollar Babies is also a winner for contouring, and Paper Roses is a nice one to have in my collection. For £1.99 each from Fragrance Direct buying all three will only set you back £5.97, which isn't even the price you'd pay for a blush from most brands! With an RRP of £13.50 I'd still think they were good products even full price!

I highly recommend these for other pale faced beauties but there is the potential for them to work for more neutral and darker skins tones too because of the high pigmentation. Click HERE to buy from Fragrance Direct.

What do you think of Dainty Doll? Have you tried any of these cream blushers?

xx

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Dainty Doll Lipsticks - Couture, Saucy Sailor & It's My Party

After my numerous haul posts featuring Dainty Doll products, I am finally getting around to reviewing them! Today's post is reviewing three shades of the lipstick.

As I have commented before, I am a big fan of the Dainty Doll packaging. I think real effort was made to create something new and distinctive, and it's also a little retro which I like.

The lipstick tubes are made from a matte black metal which looks fantastic - very high end. The lids clip on securely, the lipstick feels safe in the tube and they feel nice in your hand. The three shades I went for were 001 Couture, 002 Saucy Sailor and 003 It's My Party.

Top > bottom 001 Couture, 002 Saucy Sailor, 003 It's My Party.

As you can see, these lipsticks are highly pigmented - the colour just jumps out at you! I was so pleased with these when I swatched them on my hand for the first time. Couture is a deep vampy vintage red shade which I'm not sure I will get all that much wear from to be honest. Saucy Sailor is an in-your-face blue toned red that I think will suit most skin tones (and most importantly for Dainty Doll, looks awesome on a pale skinned gal like me!). It's My Party is much pinker in real life than it's showing in the photo - a really bright, neon pink. I don't think I would wear any of these shades during the day but they would be real show-stoppers on a night.

Here is Saucy Sailor on my lips. Here comes my first criticism! When I tried to apply this lipstick on the lips I found it really really dragged. The formula is so waxy that when putting it on the lips directly it's tricky to get an even coverage and not leave any gaps. I would definitely recommend applying this with a lip brush for this reason, and in general it's a good idea to use a brush for bright colours anyway. Once on the lip I really liked the look, however (second criticism imminent!) after only about 45 minutes of wear the product started to seriously dry my lips out. I have dry lips generally, and so I always apply a thin layer of balm under any lipstick but even with that protection in place, after 2 hours of wear my lips were so dry they were almost painful! I had to wipe this off and apply an emergency layer of Nuxe Reve de Miel to try and fix them! The It's My Party formula is marginally less drying, but it's still not very moisturising and I can't wear it for very long without needing to apply a heavy coat of lip balm.

The third and final criticism is the longevity. Even if your lips can stand the dryness, the lipstick does transfer onto cups and glasses, and starts to partly fade after about an hour. The outside of the lip doesn't fade and the lipstick there does stay put, doesn't smudge and lasts well, but the middle fades really fast. The high impact shades I've tried means I have to touch up every 45 minutes or so, perhaps even more often if eating and drinking lots over that period.

So overall I'm sadly disappointed by these lipsticks. I had high hopes for them given the high price - these retail for £12.50 ordinarily, and there are a number of rave reviews in the blogosphere. I bought mine from Fragrance Direct for £1.99 each (link) so I'm not as annoyed as I would be had I spent over 6 times that amount on each one.

Have you tried these lipsticks? How did they work out for you?

xx

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