Ambient Lighting.

My friend – and photographer, Lydia, has this magical touch. I call it the Lydia-effect. I’m not a photographer but the way she edits gives all of her subjects this soft, perfectly glowing skin. And this is very good, if you are a blogger. We shoot early in the morning before work and I’m often very tired. I really don’t like to put a lot of makeup on my face – never have, never willl… and sometimes I feel bad about that when I look in the mirror. But then I get my photos back from her and any imperfections are just blurred away. So I continue with my morning pattern of laziness… sticking to the basics – mascara, bronzer, bright lipstick.

I am blabbering on and on now, but wanted to provide a little context. What this post is supposed to be about is this magical palette that arrived in the mail a few months ago from Hourglass Cosmetics. I played around with it a bit and then forgot about it, picking it up again last weekend before a night out. The palette contains three different soft-focus finishing powders that are meant to recreate flattering light sources… incandescent, dim, and radiant. The idea is that the technology in the powders filters out harsh light and blurs your imperfections.

I don’t think this is how you are supposed to use it {the reviews on Sephora’s page prove that}, but I can never remember which powder is which light, so I take a big fluffy brush {love this one} and blend all three colors together and swipe them all over my face. I think you are meant to apply it over primer or foundation but I typically avoid those things most days. It takes all of five seconds to apply this “my way” and I have to tell you, it really does work. The Lydia-effect in palette form. Imperfections, redness, fine lines… they all just seem to blend away! You can get it at Sephora or Barney’s.