J.Lo's Glow

I am forever being asked how can one achieve Jennifer Lopez's infamous 'glow'. In fact, her 'glow' is so popular, she even named her perfume Glow right?

Well, this is my take on the whole 'J.Lo Glow' (baring in mind, friends, clients, customers have been asking me this for the last 10 years or so).

1. You're either blessed with naturally good baby-soft plump skin, where just a bit of red lipstick on your cheeks creates a glow. (I must admit I get very jealous when I see others with this perfect skin, I was even glued to Wimbledon staring at some of the women tennis players flawless skin).

OR

2. You've got the budget for weekly/monthly expensive facials a la Jennifer Lopez (rumour has it she indulges in placenta facials, weird but hey if it works then I'm up for it).

However, my advice to everyone who asks how they can create glowing skin who don't have J.Lo's perfect skin or her big bucks for regular super pricey treatments is;

1. Begin working with your skin. Invest in a good quality cleansing regime, do not just wash your face with 'whatever is in the bathroom', as I am frequently told. It's important to use products which are designed for your skin needs and skin type. (I could babble on for ages about the importance of a good skin care regime but I'll keep it brief on this occasion.) ALWAYS remove make up before bed, I don't care how tired or sick I am, I make sure I Eve Lom. Finally, before I go off track, DO treat your skin to the occasional facial - "you're worth it".

2. The fun part....the products which can help you with your J.Lo 'glow'.

The products you use do depend on your skin type and also skin colour. I don't like long blog posts, so I'll just mention a few for today and continue with more next time.

For my skin, olive toned, when I have a tan, I love to use NUXE's Huile Prodigieuse with the gold shimmer.

Ideal for: dry skin

When I am pale, like at the moment, I am loving Daniel Sandler's watercolour blusher in spice, a warm terracotta with pink shimmer. (Perfect for those beach scenes like in J.Lo's latest music video, because this is actually waterproof, separate blog post coming soon).

Ideal for: all skin types as it's water based

Daniel Sandler's watercolour blush in Spice

I also like Paul & Joe's bronzer from the Blue Horizon Collection. I love that you can contour with this bronzer (for J.Lo chiselled cheekbones), it gives a really nice sun-kissed look with shimmer.

Ideal for: normal/combo/oily skin

Finally, for my skin with a tan or darker skin (Indian/Black), I highly recommend Iman's Afterglow bronzer. It has three genius sections which combined give skin THE AFTERGLOW! You can use a blusher brush with the Egyptian-gold section and sweep over cheekbones and blush. HOT!

What do you think?

Have you tried any of the products above? Or is there another celeb's glow you'd like?

Next time, more products to fake J.Lo's glow...MAC's Lustre drops, New CID, NARS, Benefit Cha Cha Tint...plus more.

NBBE....the place to be for beauty bloggers

NBBE sounds like some sort of movie or music award, right? Well, it's not. NBBE is the acronym for the National Beauty Blogging Event. This year is the first time anything like this has ever been done and I forsee huge potential next year.

The NBBE took place at the Professional Beauty Show last Monday, beauty bloggers were carefully selected to attend the debut NBBE. I was amazed at some of the brands showcasing new products and collections, such as Natura Bisse (I'm a huge fan of the Oxygen range), RMK (I love all things Japanese, the metallic eyes collection are sure to impress anyone), Decleor (always aspired to use Decleor when I was a teenager working on Calvin Klein in Rackhams, now House of Fraser) and my pharmacy favourite ArtDeco.

Other brands that I had heard about but not tried before are; Tan Organic, Carita (I describe Carita as the Cartier of Spa/Salon Skincare, pure indulgence and stunning, shame there weren't any products to try out). Broadway Nails and Kiss Nails (home nail kits), Joico (a salon professional hair care range from the states), Medik8 (didn't get to try it out but the electric blue serum looks stunning and is designed for oily skin), Monu Skincare (an envronmentally friendly brand ahhhh, I love them already) Nailease (dry nail varnish strips (didn't get to try these but they are in Boots) and Gentry Grooming (male grooming range).

I walked in to see a few familiar beauty blogging faces, which I love, such as donotrefreeze, Beautywowza, Hell Candy and 6inch stilettos. I got to meet some cool new girls too, such as Sabrinaloves, MsDrifted and JessicaRose. There are others who I follow on twitter and their blogs but didn't realise they were there, such as Sparklezandshine and ChicBeautyBlog (erm, I was eyeing up her amazing watch).

Anyway, back to the event, all in all it was really good, wish we could have mingled more with each other and the brands though. I thought it would have been like a 'speed dating' event, where each brand has 15 minutes to talk to us and we change over. However, I did enjoy watching Daniel Sandler in action, he created perfect dewy skin on his Katherine Heigl lookalike model.

Celeb MUA Jackie Tyson created a rock chick look in less than 20 mins, she was cool to watch too. Loved the Jemma Kidd dewy glow rose gold highlighter she used (on my shopping list already).

I found Fiona Brackenbury very interesting to listen to and would love to do an interview with her. Fiona is the head of training for Decleor, she discussed the topic of essential oils and why they are essential in beauty. Decleor have been using essential oils in their products from the beginning. I learned some pretty amazing facts from Fiona, she was so impressive and inspiring. I learned that there are 19 different types of collagen (they are numbered 1- 19, with 1 and 3 making up 090% of the total collagen). I could literally do a whole blog post on this discussion alone....I'll try to get an interview lined up with Fiona.

Moving on, products I am super excited to test out?

TanOrganic, an antiageing professional tanning system, 100% natural containing vitamins and hyaloronic acid and NO synthetic colours, preservatives or parabens.

Decleor Expression De L'Age

Joico Intensive Hair Mask for damaged hair

Natura Bisse Intensive Tolerance Booster

RMK Concentrate Serum

Monu Eye Cool Gel

Decleor Aroma White-C Recovery Brightening Night Cream

Finally, some pics, I know how you all love a good image ;)

Dewy Angelic Skin by Daniel Sandler

Rock Chick by Jackie Tyson

Close up of rock chic eyes

Three letters -OMG oh and 3 more (by) RMK

NEW RMK Lip Crayon in No 4

Medik8 Serum! I must get some of this

If you were at NBBE, what did you think about it?

Have you tried any of these products out?

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