I’m usually the worst when it comes to committing to beauty products. I tend to bounce around between different shampoos, hair spray, lip gloss, perfumes, and even toothpaste! I was the same with make up, but over the last 3 years my make up base has remained the same. I’ve been using four products from the Make Up For Ever line – a couple are staples, and two are what I would call nice to have!

My saviour is the High Definition Foundation. It’s oil free so it’s perfect for someone like me with an oily complexion, and it has an amazing natural finish. The HD part really sold me, because who doesn’t want to look good in HD? It basically provides invisible coverage which I love. The product was actually developed in partnership with television and film technicians! Those are the people you want to have a say in your make up, right? I find that it lasts all day, and it doesn’t take a lot of the foundation to provide good coverage. Usually it takes me about four months before I get to the bottom of the foundation, so at $49.00 it’s not completely terrible if you need 2 or three refills per year. It’s your face – you need to invest in it!

I also can’t live without the Full Cover Concealer. AMAZING coverage. You need so little of it too – one tube lasts me close to a year! You wouldn’t believe how little will completely conceal everything you want to hide on your face! I have a toddler so trust, there can be a lot I need to conceal some days. It’s a little on the thick side, but that works for me because it stays put and does what it’s supposed to. It will run you $37, but that may last you a years worth.

I can sort of live without primer – some people swear by it, but I’m not one of them. When I remember to put it on, I do. I have tried a bunch of them, but I usually found them a little slimy (especially the Smashbox ones!). I have the HD Microperfecting Primer To Go, mostly because I was too cheap to buy a big one, and this $19 one has lasted me forever because I’m so forgetfull. So for me it’s take it or leave it, but it’s one of the better ones I’ve tried. Maybe I’m just not meant for primer.

The final member of my Make Up For Ever team is the HD Microfinish Powder. This only comes out on special occasions because it’s a little finicky. Have you ever seen photos of a movie star on the red carpet, and it looks like the have a white blotch on their face? I used to wonder how their make up artist and assistant’s didn’t notice they had something on their face, but I’m pretty sure it was a form of this powder. The Make Up For Ever one sets my make up and evens out my skin tone, but it almost has an invisible finish. I’ve noticed I look fine in the mirror, but in photos of it’s not even I might have a white splotch on my face! It can only be seen if it’s uneven with a camera, so you need to be careful with it because you can leave the house looking fine, but if someone takes a photo of you and you did a bad job making it even then you are toast. A little goes a long way (mostly because it scares me), so at $22 it wasn’t a bad investment because I’ve had it for years!

Make Up For Ever can be purchased at Sephora in store and online.

Since I straighten my hair everyday, I try to only wash and blow dry every other day. I tend to have oily hair, so dry shampoo is a must. I feel like I have tried all of them searching for the perfect one! I have narrowed it down to four different kinds that I’ve got on the go right now, and I’ve reviewed them for you below.

Cake’s Volumizing Dry Shampoo Spray is the most costly out of the four, but I wouldn’t say it’s the best. It retails for $22.00 CAD, and the smell is AMAZING! It smells like lemon, sugar and vanilla. It absolutely creates volume – better than any of the other dry shampoo’s I’ve tried! It didn’t leave any white residue at all, but I didn’t feel like it did much to absorb any oil in my hair. It was great to do a messy ponytail with, but when leaving my hair down it didn’t make my hair look refreshed at all. It really made it feel like I added a lot of product to my hair, and when I touched my hair it seemed almost sticky. I wanted this one to work the most because of that amazing scent, but I found it was just great for a messy ponytail.

One of my favourites, but the cheapest of the group is Batiste Dry Shampoo. Normally I buy it at Shoppers Drug Mart for $9.99, but I often find it in Winners for even cheaper. It comes in a few different scents like Blush and Tropical, but even the original spray doesnt have a bad scent. The volumizing effect isn’t bad, but it’s how it refreshes my hair and absorbs the oil that I’m impressed with. When I spray it in it really looks like I’ve washed my hair! As long as I don’t play with it too much throughout the day, it keeps your hair looking refreshed for most of the day. I found this one left a bit of white residue, but it could easily be brushed out.

Marc Anthony 2nd Day Clear Dry Shampoo doesn’t have the most amazing smell, but it’s claim is that it actually absorbs smell from your hair. Does your hair smell bad enough to need spray? If I’m at a campfire or something then yes, my hair smells bad. When I have second-day hair my main concern isn’t the odour of it, because it doesn’t smell bad! I felt like claiming to eliminate my hair’s odour was a strange offer! Otherwise it did a good job at absorbing excess oil, and volume-wise it wasn’t bad either. I didn’t experience any chalky residue with this one at all.

The latest addition to my dry shampoo collection is Redken Pillow Proof Blow Dry Two Day Extender. It came in a swag bag from WMC Fashion Week so I gave it a try! Redkin has revamped this line, and have changed the bottle to a hot pink colour (you may have seen it in monochrome packaging previously). The nozzle has some serious pressure – I actually had to hold the canister pretty far from my head! It claims to extend your blow-out to the second day which I think it does, and unlike the other sprays it didn’t claim to add volume. It’s good it didn’t claim it would be, because it didn’t add any volume at all! It did seem to absorb oil, but because it didn’t volumize it was hard to tell because the volume in the other dry shampoos made my roots look fresh. This dry shampoo did absorb the oil, but because my roots were still pretty flat, my hair didn’t seem as refreshed.

Out of all of these dry shampoo’s, I would say the Batiste and the Marc Anthony are the best. The both absorb oil and have a bit of volume. The Cake Dry Shampoo is the one I wanted to be the best, but the feeling it left in my hair made it seem less refreshed after using the spray. The Redkin was the most disappointing due to the lack of volume.