The Menu - Brand Spotlight - Benefit

One of my favourite ways to spend an evening is looking through my makeup stash. Today, quite a few products seemed to be catching my eye and they were by a brand that I love. So today I am going to post about Benefit.

It's a brand that I have a fair few products from but not too many, so should make a fun read (I hope!). Benefit is a brand that is always associated with amazing cutesy packaging and a great range of products spanning a multitude of skin tones. However, I think that Benefit needs to be given more credit for making beauty products and makeup accessible.

In recent years, Benefit has been really up-ed their game and have consistently brought to market some ground breaking products.

Brand insight
Benefit Cosmetics was founded in 1976 by twins Jean and Jane Ford. Initially founded as a beauty boutique, the shop specialized in quick-fix products for beauty dilemmas. The decision of having their own beauty boutique was merely based on a coin toss, heads for a casserole cafe and tails for beauty boutique. Tails it was and the Ford Sisters have built Benefit Cosmetics into a global beauty brand now selling in more than 30 countries. In addition to their product expansion they have also opened up "brow bars" worldwide. Benefit Cosmetics LLC is now a subsidiary of LVMH.

Products  
I own two of Benefit's mascara offerings - They're Real ($23) and Bad gal lash ($19). If you read my blog regularly, you'll know that I love the They're Real mascara. I find that even though the formula is wet (beware if you love layering mascara as wet formula tends to make eyelashes spidery if you layer too much), the clumping is negligible. What is much more prominent is the wonderful length and natural volume. Bummer that this beauty costs more than most of my foundations!!! 

Truth be told, I haven't used the Bad Gal Lash mascara yet. The one I have is a deluxe size sample that is waiting patiently in my 'to be tested' makeup pile.

Ok so let's just get the whole Porefessional primer ($30 for 30 ml) rant over with, this primer just doesn't work on my pores. I have tried pressing it onto my pores, rubbing it in, smoothing it on and well nothing. So if you really love this, please can you tell me what I'm doing wrong here? Thankfully, mine was a 100 point perk from Sephora but I would still like to love it the same as everyone else :)

Boi-ing concealer in Medium / Deep (4) ($20 for 3 g) is meant to be an industrial strength concealer, which I take to mean that it should cover everything and it does. It's a cream concealer, but the consistency is very thick, so you only need a little and use your fingers as the warmth from your fingers will help spread and blend the concealer. I never use this under my eyes as I fear that it might be drying, instead I use it on the odd blemish or sometimes I pop some onto my chin and the tip of my nose, both of which tend to go red - I have already heard all the Rudolph jokes, thank you very much :) I love this and the colour match for me is quite good too. Oooh another thing, I tend to use this under my foundation rather than on top, as I find this works better for me. Final verdict - pricey but works.

Let me mention the Benefit Creaseless Cream Shadow / Liner in Busy Signal ($20 for 4.5 g), I only own one colour in this product range. I adore that it translates onto the lid with the same intensity that it looks in the pot. The colour is a lovely bronze and coppery shade that's dark enough to blend into the outer V to create a metallic smokey eye. I always put a Urban Decay primer under any of my cream shadows and this one is no different. It does crease on me if I don't use a primer.

I think Benefit were the first to come out with the cream shadows in the pot product (other than Mac's Paint Pot which they market as being more of an eyeshadow base rather than a standalone shadow), now everyone does it with some of the most popular being Maybelline and Estee Lauder. Which ones are your fav?

My favourite Benefit product is the Dandelion Powder ($28 for 0.25 oz). It is one of the first Benefit products that I picked up, and to be honest it was mostly because I ADORE the packaging. As you can see that I have used it a lot and have hit major pan on it. I think I can get another year's use out of this, because you only need a tiny bit and I sweep this to set my concealer and around the centre of my face to brighten. I also love the way it smells and the tiny little sparkles in this are not evident on the skin but add to the glow on the face. Oohh and if you are fair then you can use this as a blush as well. Another note is that I have the powder in the old packaging which came with 10 g of product and the new version only has 7.5 g for the same price, so that's a shame.

The only lipstick I own from Benefit, is one called Flirt Alert ($18) that I bought in a blog sale for less than half price. I do love a good bargain. The lovely lady who sold it has only swatched it once and decided that it was too red for her. Luckily for me, I think it's just the perfect amount of red :) It's stunning and quite matte (without being too matte) and lasts all day on me. However it can be a little drying so I do pop on a bit of lip balm or a gloss on top. 

I was given two two-sided lip glosses early last year and I love the shades but I hate the smell. I think these are discontinued too so no point in going on about them. Just want to mention that I don't use these unless I have a cold coz then I don't have to smells the god awful plasticy smell that these give off. I must mention too that these are super sticky, much more than I like, but that does mean that these last on my lips longer.

Swatches in normal light - L to R - Creaseless cream eyeshadow in Busy Signal, Dandelion Face Powder, Flirt Alert Lipstick, Kiss You Lip gloss, Friends in High Places Lip gloss, Fresh Squeezed Lip gloss and I'm with the Band Lip gloss.

Swatches in sunshine - L to R - Creaseless cream eyeshadow in Busy Signal, Dandelion Face Powder, Flirt Alert Lipstick, Kiss You Lip gloss, Friends in High Places Lip gloss, Fresh Squeezed Lip gloss and I'm with the Band Lip gloss.