u/Maleficent-Total2738

Kaylia earns the highest international WAG AA score of the year so far, by some margin.

Also huge congrats to Spain's Alba Petisco for coming back from a fall on the Uneven Bars to win silver 🥈 (52.850) and Italy's Sofia Tonelli for winning bronze 🥉 (51.650).

Worlds 2026 shaping up to be pretty exciting!

I was quite excited for the new Tower 28 Swipe Serum foundation because I really like the concealer, but a few friends overseas tried it and none of them liked it, and I feel like now that the unincentivised reviews are starting to come in, they're a lot more mixed (sits on the surface of the skin, sinks into pores, not mature-skin friendly, etc), so would really like some honest opinions if anyone tries it. I was wondering if it might turn out to be like NYX Bare with Me, where you have a very highly regarded concealer and a much less popular matching foundation.

I've had it in my Sephora NZ cart for a while, and was considering picking it up in the sale, but was hoping for some actual real, uncentivised reviews, especially from anyone with more dry skin.

Almost entirely inspired by the fact that I've just seen there's a Tower 28 Swipe Serum foundation coming out—I'm a big fan of the concealer, which I frequently use as foundation anyway. (I also appreciate that the price point isn't quite as eye-watering as a lot of the other Mecca and Sephora brands.) And I think the concealer shade range is actually pretty decent, so fingers crossed for a similar range in the foundation. I just hope it's not going to be a similar situation to the NYX Bare With Me, which is another excellent concealer but I think most people didn't like the matching foundation nearly as much.

There also seems to be a lilac-pink shade of the Hourglass Liquid Blush coming out which looks interesting—it came up in the search results when I was trying to see if the new lilac shade of the Prada blush is available in NZ/Aus (and it comes up if you search for Hourglass lilac-pink blush), but when you click through to the Hourglass website, it doesn't seem to exist yet, so I'm assuming it's either an upcoming release or was a past release that I completely missed? I'm interested if it's an upcoming one since Hourglass doesn't have that many shades that are actually cool-toned, and it makes me more hopeful that the supposed leaked holiday palettes are actually going to be more cool-toned this year. It might be the first year I buy one if so. (Although I'm still a bit horrified that we're somehow already nearing holiday releases, and that some beauty advent calendars are out already.)

Just to throw in another one, was also excited to see another good cool-toned shade come out (#221 Puff) in one of my favourite lipstick ranges, the LAKA Bonding Glow lipsticks, and managed to get that this week.

I was considering picking up an Hourglass powder in the Sephora sale (although I didn't realise how much the price has increased lately, and they only seem to have Dim Light available in the mini size, which I think would be too deep for my skin tone), but someone said they need to be used on top of a setting powder because they don't perform well on unset makeup, and I wondered if that's how everyone is using them effectively. I have pretty dry skin so never use a setting powder, but I did quite like the sound of the finishing powders giving a blurred finish. (However, I've also now read a few reviews describing them as having visible shimmer particles?)

I have a Mecca voucher and want to use it for a new base product. I've seen a lot of good reviews for the Ellis Faas foundation—it seems to be a product that not that many people use, but almost every person who does use it loves it, so I wanted to see if anyone here has an opinion on it. And feel free to talk me out of it if you're not a fan! :)

ETA: Especially amazing if anyone has tried both the Ellis Faas and the even more expensive Victoria Beckham Foundation Drops, which is unfortunately the best foundation I've tried in years, I think, and how you think they compare.